BLOOMINGTON– Parks and Recreation is collecting quotes from tree planting companies to plant 157 trees in three different locations in 2024. Businesses have until Feb. 23 to submit a bid to prepare each tree planting site, dig the hole, then plant, stake, mulch, and water each tree. The trees to be planted are provided by Parks and Recreation.
Duke Energy’s Bloomington Reliability Project in 2023 built new transmission lines along Rogers Street, 11th Street, and Dunn Street to feed three substations and to provide a continuous and reliable flow of energy to the community. The project forced the removal of 120 trees in the transmission line corridor. Duke Energy has contributed more than $55,000 to replace trees that were removed as part of the project.
Parks and Recreation urban forestry staff marked the tree planting locations with pink flags and paint. The tree planting locations can also be viewed online in Treekeeper, the city’s urban forest management system. While in Treekeeper, check the “Community Highlight” box in the map layers panel to see the marked locations of all the replacement trees.
Trees selected for planting are appropriately sized to grow safely under the new transmission lines. Landowners who have tree planting locations adjacent to their properties and who would like to suggest tree species to be planted may contact Urban Forester Haskell Smith.
A series of Bicentennial bond projects announced in 2018 included $800,000 to plant trees along streets and in public rights-of-way across the city. Potential planting sites were identified by Davey Resource Group in 2019 as part of a city-wide inventory of street trees. More than 350 street trees have been planted in Bloomington since 2020, with hundreds more additional seedling and sapling trees planted in city parks by the department’s urban greenspace staff.
