Planning outdoor power for municipal spaces presents challenges most communities don’t anticipate. Katrina Lopez, PE, a Project Manager at Ciorba Group with over 20 years of civil engineering experience, has watched the same issues emerge on project after project. The problem isn’t a lack of planning. It’s not knowing what questions to ask before the concrete is poured and the pedestals are installed.

In this article:

• Why most communities underestimate their power needs
• The voltage mismatch that stopped a food truck event
• Stage equipment failures that could have been prevented
• Maintenance issues landscape architects don’t see coming
• How to plan for events you don’t know you’ll host

The “We Have No Idea” Problem

When Lopez starts a new municipal project, she sets up meetings to discuss power requirements. The response she hears most often? “We have no idea.”

This isn’t a criticism. Communities genuinely don’t know what electrical infrastructure they need because they haven’t hosted the events yet. They’re planning a plaza or park upgrade and someone mentions they’d like to host a farmers market. Maybe some festivals. But details? None.

So Lopez draws from years of experience across multiple projects. She’s seen what happens when communities get their new space and suddenly realize what they’re missing. She’s also worked events with her family throughout the Chicago area, making the physical electrical connections behind the scenes. That combination lets her plan for what communities will want, even when they can’t articulate it yet.

Pitfall #1: Incompatible Connections

A food truck arrives at your event. The vendor has a 208-volt connection requirement. Your site provides 240-volt power. The vendor can’t plug in. There’s no easy fix onsite.

This happened at an event Lopez worked. The vendor couldn’t operate. The community scrambled to see if the generator company could accommodate a different configuration. It was a mess.

The solution starts long before event day. When planning power infrastructure, you need clear specifications in your vendor agreements. If your site provides specific voltage and connection types, vendors need to know upfront. If they don’t have compatible equipment, they need to tell you so you can make provisions.

Better yet, provide multiple connection options at designated vendor locations. Spider boxes can connect six vendors typically, but you need to know what those vendors will actually plug in.

Pitfall #2: Underestimating Food Vendor Loads

Arts and crafts vendors? They need power for phones and maybe a glue gun. Food vendors? That’s a different category entirely.

“You would be surprised how much that load is,” Lopez notes. A panini press draws significant power. If you have vendors using electric cooking equipment instead of gas-fired, you’re looking at high loads. Vitamixes, certain microwaves, any electric cooking equipment creates demand most people don’t expect.

Lopez learned this the hard way. Now when she plans festival spaces, she designates areas where heavy food loads will be centralized. These locations get higher power capacity and more connections. Vendors with minimal power needs go elsewhere. This prevents overloading circuits and gives communities flexibility as vendor mixes change from event to event.

Pitfall #3: Stage Equipment Sensitivity

Stage equipment is hypersensitive to frequency variations. At one event Lopez worked, the frequencies were off and the stage equipment kept crashing during the performance. The generator frequency wasn’t tight enough.

This isn’t common knowledge. Event planners often don’t realize that powering a stage requires more than just having enough capacity. The power quality matters. If you’re planning spaces that will host performances, this needs to be part of the conversation with your electrical engineer early in the design phase.

Pitfall #4: The Maintenance Nightmare No One Sees Coming

Lopez has had landscape architects propose equipment that looks beautiful in renderings. Then she has to explain why maintenance crews will hate them.

Take a pole with all the wiring packed inside. Yes, it’s aesthetically pleasing. But can a maintenance worker actually get their hand in there to access those wires? Can they make repairs without specialized tools or calling in contractors?

On one project for Hanover Park, the landscape architect initially proposed something that wouldn’t work functionally. Lopez found a local manufacturer and took the village team there. They mocked up the installation in the showroom. The village saw immediately why certain options would create problems. They changed several specifications before finalizing the design.

This isn’t about rejecting landscape architecture input. It’s about making pretty things work long-term. “I try to say, ‘I’ll take what you want, but can I make it functional? We’ll make it pretty, but I need it to be more functional for everything you’re trying to propose to do,'” Lopez explains.

Pitfall #5: Planning for Unknown Future Events

Here’s the reality: most communities have no idea what events they’ll host once they have a completed space.

One community told Lopez outright, “We have no idea.” So she gave them significant power capacity with multiple capabilities. “I know that once they have the space, they’ll start hosting events. And then they’ll wish they had planned for more,” she says.

Another community came back later and said they wished they had done certain things differently. But they also acknowledged Lopez gave them significant power to work with, so the infrastructure was there.

Lopez takes learnings from one project to the next. When a community says they don’t know what they need, she goes through all the different communities she’s worked with and provides similar capacity. What events do you think you’ll have? If you don’t have an idea, she’s going to give you significant power with multiple capabilities.

This includes thinking about holiday lighting with timed events and grand reveals. It means considering where twist-lock connections make sense for flexible vendor placement. It requires anticipating future needs even when the client can’t articulate them.

How to Plan Effectively

Based on projects across municipal clients, here’s what works:

• Have the conversation early. If communities can describe one event and provide tent placement ideas, that gives engineers something to work with. How many vendors? How will you make connections? If you have a spider box, you can connect six people. Will you spider it out more? Start with what you know and build from there.
• Consider vendor diversity. Food vendors need different power than craft vendors. Some will have gas equipment. Others go all-electric. Plan for the highest-demand scenario in designated areas.
• Think about maintenance access. Beautiful designs that maintenance crews can’t service create ongoing problems. Balance aesthetics with functionality.
• Plan for growth. Communities grow into their spaces. The farmers market you host in year one might expand in year three. The occasional festival might become a monthly event series. Infrastructure is expensive to add later. Build capacity upfront.
• Work with experienced engineers. Someone who has done these projects before brings knowledge you can’t get from equipment specs alone. They’ve seen what works and what fails.

Municipal Power Planning: The Integration Challenge

One project Lopez is working on involves a pickleball court installation with a shelter and playground area. The community hosts many activities in this circle area. They wanted twist-lock connections for events.

Lopez immediately thought of Pedoc because they offer twist-lock capability in a sleek design that integrates well into sites. Even her mentor from her previous firm didn’t know about this option. When she showed him the details, his response was immediate: “You’re going to create the detail and I’m going to steal it from you.”

That’s the kind of solution that works. It provides the power capacity and connection types the community needs. It looks appropriate for the landscape. And it’s manufactured to withstand outdoor conditions long-term.

Moving Forward

Planning outdoor power for municipal projects requires technical knowledge, experience, and anticipation of future needs. The communities Lopez works with appreciate when she can guide them through decisions they don’t yet know they need to make.

If you’re planning a municipal project, start by identifying what events you know you’ll host. Then talk to your electrical engineer about what you might host in the future. Be honest about uncertainty. A good engineer will help you plan for flexibility.

And when someone at a future event plugs in without issues, when your maintenance crew can service equipment efficiently, when you decide to add a new festival and have the power capacity to support it—that’s when you know the planning worked.

About the Contributor

Katrina Lopez, PE, is a Project Manager at Ciorba Group with over 20 years of experience in civil engineering. She specializes in electrical design for municipal and water resources projects, with particular expertise in outdoor power solutions for parks, plazas, and public spaces. Her hands-on experience includes both engineering design and working behind the scenes at Chicago-area events.