The City of Lake Forest Park Recreation Department is considering installing a new football field and or new soccer fields at Deerpath Park. The flood way and flood plain for the Skokie River run through Deerpath Park. It was important that any new facilities were not placed in the flood plain. Another concern was how the new facilities would fit into the existing park.
The City asked the GIS Office to assist with the analysis of the best location to place new facilities. The City provided the GIS with a PDF of a plan for an As Built for an existing football field and soccer field. This image was scaled and overlaid on a base map and imagery. Several maps showing the proposed football placed in different locations were also produced.
It was finally decided that running the software live would allow the images to be dragged and rotated to different locations. This allowed the participants to visualize how different configurations would look in the existing park and how close the new facilities would be to the existing flood plain and flood way.
By using GIS software the City has a powerful visual tool for finding the best location for a new football field and soccer field. They could instantly see how the new facilities would look in the existing park. Without GIS the city would have spent a tremendous amount of time doing field surveys and measurements of the existing Park.