Roseville's Riego Creek Park gets grass with leftover money

As the city puts the finishing touches on the new 12-acre Riego Creek Park in west Roseville, leftover funds go toward 52,000 square feet of turf grass. The Roseville City Council approved a notice of completion Feb. 5 for the 12.15-acre park in Fiddyment Farm. Riego Creek Park is off North Hayden and Holt parkways, next to Riego Creek Elementary School. The new park includes a children's swing play area, shaded picnic area, off-street parking, two baseball/softball fields, restroom, perimeter trail loop with mileage markers and an outdoor classroom area. The park was designed and built with a "conservative approach" to landscaping, but locals asked for more grass. "As the park project is now complete and all expenses have been accounted for, staff proposes to use the unspent contingency funds to convert potentially two large landscape areas along North Hayden into turf grass," staff said in the report. The turf-targeted areas include the large spaces outside the outfield fences of the ballpark diamonds. "The addition of these turf areas is a response from resident feedback seeking more turf areas within the park," staff said. Bids are scheduled to be opened by March, authorities said. The base bid includes seeding about 52,000 square feet of landscape area for grass turf, said Roseville Parks planner Heather Buck. Roseville staff plans to return to the City Council in April or May to award the project, said Parks Director Jill Geller.