Maplewood Park: $2.5 Million Authorized, and What the City's Records Show

What is the city up to at Maplewood Park? MNN filed a public records request on September 25, 2026 to find out, and the city's planning office answered on October 5, four days ahead of its own deadline.¹ The request asked for the cost estimates, the project management and vendor contracts, and the City Council papers that authorize funding for installing artificial turf at the park.

This article is a statement of the record. It sets out what the documents say, adds up the numbers they contain, and lists what they do not contain. It does not claim that any money has been misspent. The records the city sent are commitments and estimates, not payments.

The request, in full:

• Records created or received by the Mayor, any member of the City Council or OSPCD recording adopted cost estimates (probable cost) and project management contracts for the Maplewood Park improvement project, September 2020 to September 2026, detailing the installation of artificial turf.
• All estimates of probable cost (opinion of probable cost, soft costs, construction costs) prepared by city staff, IMEG Consultants Corp., or third-party consultants.
• Executed project management contracts, owner's project manager agreements, task orders and amendments for IMEG Consultants Corp. or other vendor-managed contracts for this project.
• All City Council papers presented to Mayor Christenson, signed or unsigned, that authorize or approve funding for this project.

What the Council authorized

On December 10, 2024, the City Council adopted Paper 426 of 2024 by an 11 to 0 vote, appropriating $2,500,000 from available general fund free cash for Maplewood Park Turf Rehabilitation. The order was sponsored by Carey McDonald, and Mayor Gary Christenson approved it on December 17.²

The mayor's November 26, 2024 memo to the Council described the request as a surface replacement, saying the field "no longer passes the various applicable tests." It called $2.5 million a budget figure to be refined by a design, and said the work was a rip-and-replace, not a complete makeover of the park. It also said the city was using free cash to avoid borrowing for smaller capital needs.³

Editorial note: In a September 12, 2022 story MNN reported a City representative was about the field condition of Maplewood Park at that time: "They smiled, and stated that it was in fine condition." The MNN article attached the City’s own report issued on 6/14/19, which stated at that time:

“The field as a whole is observed to be in poor condition due to excessive fiber wear through out entire field. …Field is at end of life and replacement in near future is recommended.”

Three estimates

The response includes three cost documents, all prepared by or for the project's designer. Each is an opinion of probable cost. The two Activitas documents carry a standard caution that actual bids may differ, and the December 2025 summary is marked as a draft for discussion.⁴⁵⁶

Between the two Activitas documents the scope shrank. The field area fell from 118,336 square feet to 104,323, down 11.8 percent. Replacement of fencing and netting, priced in the 2022 base, moved to optional alternates in 2025. The lighting item changed from a $298,000 LED relamp alternate to a $25,000 relamping allowance in the base. The turf price rose from $4.75 to $5.25 per square foot. The 2022 estimate also included permanent soccer, field hockey and lacrosse lines, and the 2025 estimate prices only baseball lines.

IMEG's February 2026 proposal says the work would revisit the 2022 scope and cost in light of the city's fiscal position and its interest in paring back the project to reduce cost.⁷ The $2,500,000 authorization is about $228,000 below the 2022 total and $187,800 above the December 2025 draft total with every alternate.

Contracts and commitments

Construction. On May 18, 2026 the city and R.A.D. Corp. d/b/a R.A.D. Sports signed the Maplewood Park Improvements agreement. It covers the base bid plus Bid Alternates 1 and 2, with liquidated damages of $1,500 per day. The performance bond and the labor and materials bond are each for $1,395,279.00, the bid amount shown on the change orders.⁸ Addendum No. 1, dated April 13, 2026, describes Bid Alternate 2 as work along the field's perimeter fence, including warning-track material and the fence's bottom rail.⁹ The records do not say what Bid Alternate 1 covers.

Change orders. Change Order 01 adds $27,460: $22,460 to replace 12 broken lenses and repair seven lighting outages, and $5,000 for imported stone under the walkway, where the existing asphalt was 1 to 2 inches thicker than expected. It was signed August 25 and 26, 2026.¹⁰ Change Order 02 adds $7,200 for clearing trees and brush from a drainage swale behind the first-base dugout. The engineer signed it September 3, the contractor September 25, and the owner, through OSPCD, September 28.¹¹ Together they raise the contract by $34,660, or 2.5 percent, to $1,429,939.00.

Engineering. IMEG Consultants Corp.'s February 9, 2026 work order proposal sets a total estimated fee of $332,500, which it says will not be exceeded without the city's prior approval. The copy produced, titled Executed, is addressed to OSPCD Director Alex Pratt and includes an acceptance block for the city, though the signature and date are hard to read in the scan.⁷

The fee is $55,100 above the $277,400 soft-cost allowance the draft December summary set for the base scope, and below the $385,300 allowance for the base scope plus all alternates.

Adding it up

The $737,561 is not a finding of anything. It is the part of the authorization that the produced records do not tie to a contract, an estimate or a payment. It could reflect costs that were never part of the request, such as testing, environmental work or contingency, or it could be unspent. MNN's request did not ask for invoices or payment records, so the response does not show how much has actually been paid.

What the records do not show

• A bid tabulation or schedule of prices, the number of bidders, or what Bid Alternate 1 covers.
• Any payment, requisition or purchase order for the contractor or for IMEG.
• The agreement under which Activitas prepared the December 2022 programming estimate, or under which IMEG prepared a topographic survey and existing conditions plan in spring 2025, which its proposal says it completed earlier.
• An on-call agreement between the city and IMEG. IMEG's proposal says its terms follow an agreement between IMEG and the city for on-call civil engineering services. The only on-call agreement produced is the January 1, 2023 agreement with Hayner Swanson, Inc., whose term runs through January 1, 2026, a month before IMEG's proposal. The same engineer, John C. Vancor, P.E., signs for Hayner/Swanson in 2015 and 2023 and for IMEG in 2026. The records do not explain the relationship between the two companies or any assignment of the agreement.¹²¹³
• An owner's project manager agreement, which the request asked for. No document in the response is labeled as one.
• Soil management. IMEG's proposal describes the site as a listed waste or reportable release site (MassDEP release tracking number 3-0015433) subject to a Notice of Activity and Use Limitation, and says its services do not include anything related to soil conditions. Both Activitas cost opinions say contaminated or hazardous materials are not contemplated. The records do not show who is responsible for soil requirements or whether any cost is budgeted for them.⁷
• Why two other documents were included. One is a 2021 confirmatory deed dedicating Trafton Park, formerly the Maplewood gravel lot, for park purposes.¹⁴ The other is a 2024 parking license between Malden Catholic High School and a private property owner. The city is not a party to it, and it does not mention Maplewood Park.¹⁵

Timeline

Questions for the city

• How much of the $2,500,000 has been spent, and how much is committed beyond the contract and IMEG's fee?
• What do Bid Alternates 1 and 2 cost, how many bids were received, and where is the bid tabulation?
• Under what agreements were the 2022 estimate and the spring 2025 survey produced, and what were they paid?
• What agreement governs IMEG's on-call work now that the Hayner Swanson agreement has expired?
• How will the release site and its use limitation be handled during construction, and what is budgeted for it?

If you have information about this project, or see something in the records we have missed, write to MaldenNewsNetwork@gmail.com. The documents are linked below so you can read them yourself.