Playground on the Edge, Inglewood
if they were digging a giant sandbox, this would be the world’s best playground. They’re not. Truth be told, it’s doubtful that even a giant sandbox could prevent this Ninth Avenue S.E. park from taking the dubious honour of Calgary’s Crummiest Playground: dated equipment, no shade, nothing around to beguile parents to linger if they show up at all (raise your hand if you’ve ever been here or seen anyone playing here. Yeah. We thought so).
Still, a playground is a playground, and we’ll be the first to admit that a Joni Mitchell song about paved paradises looped indignantly through our minds when we saw this one, apparently poised to be swallowed up by a developer.
As it turns out, there is a Joni Mitchell song in the works here, but it’s not the one you think. Soon to occupy the large hole on the right is I.D. Inglewood, a 19-unit, mixed-use building being developed by the local, family-owned Sarina Homes. According to company president Nazim Virani, I.D.’s upper levels will be comprised of condos, while the ground floor is reserved for retail space—including a daycare whose tiny, imaginative tenants will likely see that playground as all moons and Junes and ferris wheels, with or without a giant sandbox.
And so, against all odds, the playground stays. Better yet, Virani et al. are currently taking suggestions for ice-cream-castles-in-the-air equivalents of modern playground components (we really don’t know developers at all!).
Ah, but you’re still wondering how the heck a playground can function when a teeter-tottering rear could potentially scrape against a concrete wall directly behind it? Well, if all goes according to a plan that has ward Alderman Gian-Carlo Carra and the Inglewood Community Association on side, there will be a relaxing of the municipal “Blank Wall Policy” that currently prohibits windows from facing onto public parks (it’s a building code stipulation to do with fire transfer).
The playground will be an extension of the daycare centre, seamlessly integrated into the west side of the building. “Right now, that playground is basically just a speed trap,” says Virani. “We want it to be part of the community, to enrich the neighbourhood.” We want that, too. Oh, and since they asked, we think the playground should definitely have a see-saw. They’re good for seeing things from both sides now.