Fraser Parks Redevelopment

Winter Update

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read and respond to our letter (below) regarding the delay in building our new playground. We look forward to continuing to offer fundraising opportunities so we can continue working on Phase 2. Please keep your eye out for upcoming news on events and fundraising opportunities.

Any and all are still welcome to attend our meetings at Fraser Hall, we are headstrong and working hard to bring our dream to light!

Playground Redevelopment News

To the Fraser Community
From the Playground Redevelopment Committee

We are writing to update you on the latest news from our Playground Construction. As you may have noticed, its mid-October and the current playground is still standing  We encountered some unexpected roadblocks and after much careful consideration, we have decided the wisest decision, both in terms of funding and to ensure the community has a playground through the winter, is to delay construction until Spring of 2019.

This decision was made after consultation with our Neighbourhood Resource Coordinator and Project Team from the City, Mr. Poon and Mr. Riley from Fraser Elementary - as well as among ourselves as a committee that we needed to wait. We brought all the information to the Fraser Community League Board at our September Meeting to ask for recommendations, and then we met with the city again to give our final answers on everything.

We as a committee worked very hard to develop the equipment requirements, and spent a lot of time evaluating proposals. Once we selected the equipment is was placed into production and we were told delivery could take several months. The next step was for our Project Manager from the city to hire a Construction Manager – this is called Procurement. The City prepares and provides updated cost estimates at specific checkpoints in the process to update the fundraising group on what is left to be raised, as the project moves from the concept to a detailed construction drawing at which point the estimates become much more precise. As a result, this can negate previous estimates as more accurate information becomes available.

As most of you know, The Playground Redevelopment Budget is prepared from a combination of Grants, matching funds from the City of Edmonton (COE), and the rest from our fundraising efforts. Before we are able to move to procurement stage, the COE prepares a pre-tender estimate of all the anticipated costs for all work required to complete the playground. This estimate is based off the best information available, and included pricing from recent similar playground builds. There’s a lot of work that goes into preparing an estimate, but it is still an informed projection of what it will all cost. The factors that are causing us issues are the time of year, the weather, contractor availability, and the current economic climate affecting how contractors prepared their bids for the playground.

Our procurement closed on Sept 10, 2018 and unfortunately the lowest qualified bid to come to the Playground Committee exceed our available budget by upwards of $50,000. This was a disappointing blow to everyone involved in the project, from the city coordinators, to those in the committee. We discussed whether we had the money to pay for this immediately in hope for a Fall construction period, but we do not have the funds. Then we talked about ways we could raise the money, but after a lot of thought we all agreed it would be a poor use of funds to move ahead with the project with no guarantee the weather would cooperate with us for a Fall construction. At the time, and even now, we were facing unfavorable weather. This current playground can withstand another winter, while more importantly we can not leave the growing Fraser Elementary school without recess equipment for several month.

We the committee, along with our COE project team, reviewed and discussed all the available options and decided to defer construction to the spring of 2019 in hopes that we will receive more favorable contractor bids that better reflect the timing and weather. This was a very hard decision to make, but we did it with all the best interests of the school and the community in mind. We have asked for the playground equipment to be moved from our league grounds on Tuesday Oct 9, 2018, and be placed in a city storage facility to ensure that we don’t encounter any security or safety issues over the winter.

If you’ve stuck it this long through the explanation - thank you!

We just want to thank everyone for going through this process with us. It been a very long project and there’s no way we could have done it without the many volunteers on the committee, the contributions, the supporters for every fundraiser, and the ones who cheered us along. We couldn’t have even gotten as far as this without you. That being said we obviously still need help – we aren’t at the finish line with Phase One yet (the Playground), and we just began to fundraise for Phase Two (the Spray Deck).

We have a lot of fundraisers and meetings coming up! If anyone is interested in helping us in any form, here is a list of the upcoming events:

🎃🎃Halloween at the Hall – Oct 27
This is will be free, zombie themed family fun. All ages are welcome! We will have crafts, candy, and a zombie course to walk through. The Playground Committee will be selling baked goods at the event.

November – We will be having our Poinsettia Sale! There are a lot of options this year to choose from so stayed tuned on our Facebook Page and the Website for more details.

November 27 -- Playground Committee Meeting 6:30pm at the hall. All are welcome.

☃️⛄️☃️⛄️Craft Sale – Dec 2 at Fraser Elementary! We are still looking for venders. Again, stay tuned for more details on our Facebook Page and the Website for more details

February 16 – Family Day, and later on at night, a Teen and Tween Skate Party. Stay tuned for more details on our Facebook Page and website! 

Please contact Liz Kalisvaart at fraserpresident@gmail.com you would like to volunteer in any way or if you have further questions

Playground Updates

Unfortunately, due to the weather, our Playground development will be postponed until 2019. We will keep you posted once we have a date.

Thank you to everyone in Fraser who donated their time volunteering, financially contributing via fundraising, and spreading the word! We hope the playground completion will be in the summer of 2019. We are now moving into Phase 2, the Spray Deck and Outdoor Fitness Pod. We have a lot of fundraising to do to make this happen!

We are currently seeking volunteers and fundraising ideas for our Playground Redevelopment. Please email us at fraserplayground@gmail.com.

Fraser Park Redevelopment Silent Auction Update

Thank you to all that attended this fun evening on March 25 and helped raise funds for our Fraser Park Redevelopment. Your support is greatly appreciated!

In no specific order, we would like to thank all the businesses and individuals for their donations that helped make our Fraser Park Redevelopment Silent Auction a HUGE success.

 B. Smith, C. Vincent, E. Utri, H. Sweet, J. Hill, J. Kalynchuk, K. LaChance, L. Johnston, M. Grue, N. Utri, P. Gwinne,r S. Henriet, S. Luyendyk, T. Zyp, Backside tours, Blacktop Paving Inc, Elvenrelics, Goodfellas, NDP, Red loon tattoo & Piercing ltd, Stone cutting and coring, TD, travellingyogiretreats, Youngevity, Zyp chicks, The Hart Rose

Fraser Holiday Craft Sale: November 20

We would like to give a huge THANK YOU to all of you that made this event a success! Thank you to everyone that braved the cool fall weather to come out and support our community.

To the vendors, thank you for your donation to our raffle prizes and for setting up and leaving the area nice and clean.

To our volunteers, thank you for coming in and setting up and tearing down the tables so quickly.

Lastly, a huge THANK YOU to the Fraser school principal, Marion, for allowing us to use the school gym and for coming out on her day off to help!

The raffle prizes has been drawn and the winners have received their baskets!

We raised over $1200 towards the redevelopment of our park. Thank you for making our first event such a success! Hope to see you all again next year.

Sincerely,
Fraser Park Redevelopment Committee

The Fraser Park Redevelopment Committee

On September 19th was the annual Fraser Community Day. Congratulations to Amanda on winning the $360 prize from the Park Committee’s 50/50 draw! 

At the end of September the Park Committee met with City Planners to move forward on the park design. By the end of the year the committee should be hearing from the City Planners on a basic design and by the beginning of the new year, the committee will come forward with the design to show the community the new park concept. We hope to break ground with the park by the summer of 2018. Right now the estimated costs for everything we have asked for is $1.5-1.75 million.

Fundraising help is needed to achieve the park we all want. If you wish to help, please email us at fraserplayground@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you!