Lolla park repairs to cost $266,000

More than a week after music fans rocked out at Lollapalooza, two mud-slopped fields in Grant Park remained closed to the public for the repair work that is set to begin Wednesday. The price tag for the post-fest repairs is estimated at $266,000, the Chicago Park District announced Tuesday.

Thanks to rain during the fest, concertgoers left the turf fields torn up, particularly at the southern end of Grant Park where about 30 acres of the park was blocked off Tuesday.

The three-day music festival, which was held Aug. 1-3, is hosted on 115 acres of Grant Park. The entire park is 325 acres including the high-traffic areas of Millennium Park and Buckingham Fountain.

On Tuesday, chain-link fences surrounded the swampy Lower Hutchinson Field from Balbo Avenue to 11th Street where headliners Eminem, Outkast and Kings of Leon performed on the Samsung Galaxy stage. Also closed off was mushy Upper Hutchinson Field from Balbo Avenue to roughly 8th Street where Iggy Azalea and Chance The Rapper graced what's known as Perry's stage.

The rest of Grant Park was open to the public, including Buckingham Fountain, the gardens and Butler Field where puddles, mud pockets and dozens of geese were spotted at the park's north end.

"For all intents and purposesI was at Grant Park yesterdayit's basically open other than the one area down at the south," said Bob O'Neill, president of Grant Park Conservancy. "People are using it as if nothing happened there," he said of the rest of Grant Park.

A day after the fest, Lollapalooza promoter C3 Presents said it saw more damage to parts of Grant Park compared to 2013 due to heavy rains Aug. 3. Last year, the Chicago Park District estimated the repairs to cost $210,000 to $220,000.

But it wasn't as bad as 2011, when it cost roughly $800,000 to repair Grant Park after three inches of rain soaked festgoers, O'Neill said.

Representatives from C3 and the park district as well as an independent third-party contractor assessed the condition of Grant Park before and after the festival.

Under the terms of the concert agreement, C3 is responsible for picking up the repair tab.

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Lolla park repairs to cost $266,000