Located in Wilmette at 702 Locust, just south of Lake Avenue is the Wilmette Community Park.  Consisting of 39 acres, the park features multiple baseball and soccer fields, walking paths and many open area practice fields.

In 2019, The Village of Wilmette selected this site to house their first underground storage reservoir to help frequent flooding in the Village.  The first phase of this project included the installation of the underground storage tanks at the Community Park.  Once all three phases are completed, it will provide 10 year flood protection to 98% of at risk households west of Ridge Road.

In an intergovernmental agreement, the park district agreed to allow the installation of the underground storage tanks in exchange for improvements to the park, including new lighting, new bathroom facilities and irrigation throughout all the existing playing fields and new practice fields.

In conjunction with Berger Excavating, village engineers and park district engineers, JM Irrigation was able to successful install a state of the art irrigation system utilizing Hunter I25 stainless steal sports turf heads and the Hunter ACC2 controller with cellular modem connectivity to allow monitoring of flow and usage anywhere you can access the web.  Additionally, JM was able to complete 95% of the project within a two month time frame, allowing for seeding to be in place prior to winter.

Take a stroll through this tranquil park and enjoy the sounds of baseball and soccer, all while knowing that underground, out of sight storage tanks are alleviating flooding for many residents.