As you can see from this Oct. 24 photo, the new playground at Lehigh Park is a work in progress.
Exactly a year ago, the Albany City Council approved the purchase of a special kind of playground for installation at Lehigh Park. Now the city’s park maintenance crew is bolting the pieces together.
“Playground assembly is complex and has a lot of parts,” said Rick Barnett, Albany’s parks and facilities maintenance manager. “Think of it in terms of a semi-truck load of IKEA furniture with very exacting installation and safety standards and giant boxes of parts/bolts/screws and assorted pieces that each have an exact place that they go.”
I could see what he meant when I went by the park on a bike ride Thursday after the crew was gone for the day.
This is going to be a playground with a surface of antistatic and antimicrobial artificial grass and equipment designed for children with a wide range of disabilities. When I last wrote about it in October 2023, I described it this way:
“Besides the different surface, the project still calls for two traditional swings plus one that accommodates a caregiver and a child; a ‘group spinner’ that can be used by children using walkers or wheelchairs; sensory panels with sound, music, tactile activities and color; and a communication panel for children who have trouble with speech.”
The playground is costing just over $200,000, paid with $155,000 from the federal community development block grant program and about $50,000 in parks funds.
In an email Friday, Barnett told me that if the weather cooperates, the installation of playground equipment should be finished by the second week of November. Then the city will have to wait for a subcontractor for the manufacturer to install the turf.
Barnett hopes the place can have a “soft opening” around Thanksgiving. (hh)
Here are a few of the many pieces waiting to be installed.
Piecing together a special Albany playground
As you can see from this Oct. 24 photo, the new playground at Lehigh Park is a work in progress.
Exactly a year ago, the Albany City Council approved the purchase of a special kind of playground for installation at Lehigh Park. Now the city’s park maintenance crew is bolting the pieces together.
“Playground assembly is complex and has a lot of parts,” said Rick Barnett, Albany’s parks and facilities maintenance manager. “Think of it in terms of a semi-truck load of IKEA furniture with very exacting installation and safety standards and giant boxes of parts/bolts/screws and assorted pieces that each have an exact place that they go.”
I could see what he meant when I went by the park on a bike ride Thursday after the crew was gone for the day.
This is going to be a playground with a surface of antistatic and antimicrobial artificial grass and equipment designed for children with a wide range of disabilities. When I last wrote about it in October 2023, I described it this way:
“Besides the different surface, the project still calls for two traditional swings plus one that accommodates a caregiver and a child; a ‘group spinner’ that can be used by children using walkers or wheelchairs; sensory panels with sound, music, tactile activities and color; and a communication panel for children who have trouble with speech.”
The playground is costing just over $200,000, paid with $155,000 from the federal community development block grant program and about $50,000 in parks funds.
In an email Friday, Barnett told me that if the weather cooperates, the installation of playground equipment should be finished by the second week of November. Then the city will have to wait for a subcontractor for the manufacturer to install the turf.
Barnett hopes the place can have a “soft opening” around Thanksgiving. (hh)
Here are a few of the many pieces waiting to be installed.
Tags: artificial turf, community development, disabilities, Lehigh Park, parks, playgrounds