By Ying Yee Wong
Urbana Park District received a $550,000 state grant from Open Land Acquisition and Development (OSLAD) to renovate Meadowbrook Park Playground.
Governor J.B. Pritzker approved a $60 million Open Land Acquisition and Development grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Urbana Park District is one of the 118 park districts to receive a grant.
Meadowbrook Park Playground started in 1995. This 13,000-square-foot playground needed frequent maint5enance because of the wooden structure in the past decades. Park Manager Kara Dudek-Mizel said they had to maintain the wooden structure every two years by staining the wood to protect the playground. The new playground will completely replace the wooden structure.
There was a replacement plan for the Meadowbrook Park Playground, but the pandemic outbreak pushed the project behind, and Urbana Park District now started the project again.
"It will have a lot more accessible features for kids, and so it'll completely replace what's there now." Dudek-Mizel said.
The new playground will add new facilities, such as musical instruments and zip lines. Children of different ages can also play in the playground. "there will be two different zones based on sort of developmental age groups, and that'll be a smaller area for 2 to 5-year-olds. And then the other playground area is for 5 to 12-year-olds," said Dudek-Mizel. She also mentioned they would like to make the playground more accessible and connected to allow adults and caregivers to move around the site and play with children.
Urbana Park District is looking forward to the renovation park, "it's really exciting to get the funding. It's been worked on over a lot of time by the community to come to this design. So it's not just something that we sort of made up. It's gone through a lot of renditions," said Dudek-Mizel. She hoped the end product would be something that people would be excited about.
The actual installation and construction of Meadowbrook Park Palyground will begin in 2024.
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