Members of the Plymouth Park Department were asked to decide of what style of playground they want at the Hoosier Old Wheels Pavilion.
Monday evening during the park board meeting, Mike Reese from the Troyer Group discussed the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant through the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. This grant will fund a new playground at the Hoosier Old Wheels Pavilion and a trail from the covered bridge through the park to on Randolph Street to Plymouth Goshen Trail.
Reese presented four different concepts for the playground area and told park board members they needed to determine what concept they were interested in. He told the budget was $220,000 for the playground which includes all the equipment and the surfacing. Reese also said the various playground equipment was interchangeable at the parks board’s choice.
The first option was called Space Rope Playground and included a poured rubber base like the one in Freedom Park at Packard Woods. The equipment could include a freestanding slide, saucer swing, jumping net, rope climbing net and a rope tunnel.
Board member Laura Mann was concerned with vandalism to the ropes and that smaller children wouldn’t be able to use it.
The second option is a natural wood playground with smaller structures on a fiber mulch and grassy mounds. Other equipment would include a castle with smaller slide, crawling pyramid, pendulum swing and a zip line. Reese noted that this option is similar to what will be in the play area in phase II of River Park Square. The option favors younger children.
Park Board member Mike Kershner felt it the wood playground was going to be in River Park Square that the Hoosier Old Wheels playground should offer something different. He was also concerned with maintenance of the wood equipment.
Option three was a tunnel playground with two mounded hills side by side with a tunnel between the two. A hill climb rope would lead kids to the top of the mound where a side would be on the side of the hill. Also included could be a supernova rotating walk, swings, a several climbing obstacles. The base would be a combination of poured rubber and grass and fiber mulch.
The final option was the multi-surface hill playground featuring a zipline with a fiber mulch base, a rope hill climb with hill-side slide that would be on a grassy surface and the saucer swing, supernova and climbing apparatus that would be on the poured rubber base.
Park Board President Dave Morrow said, “A lot of the usage comes from older siblings playing sports at one of the parks and the other siblings migrate over to the playground.”
After a discussion with park board members the multi-surface hill playground was selected. Mike Reese said the playground equipment can be altered with other choices if board members like other options. Giving him their preference allows the Troyer Group to move forward with the design phase.
