Kids take new equipment for a spin at Jacksonville park
JACKSONVILLE — New playground equipment was recently installed at Pleasure Park in Jacksonville, and the manager of the nearby Martin Street Youth Center said the equipment is a difference maker.
“Normally, the kids who come here after school are unable to find anything to play with,” said Glen Lane, who is also the coordinator for Our Club, which is housed at the Martin Street Youth Center, next to Pleasure Park. “They are in the shrubs and in the trees. It’s safety risks. Since the new equipment was installed, even the staff has noticed a difference — the kids are a lot easier to deal with because they now have an outlet for their energy.”
Kevin House, Jacksonville Parks and Recreation Department director, said the new playground equipment at Pleasure Park, 201 W. Martin St., has been in the works for several months.
“We moved the old playground equipment for safety reasons, probably 16 to 18 months ago,” he said.
The new equipment, which cost the city approximately $86,000, was finished three weeks ago. Jacksonville purchased the equipment from Cunningham Recreation, which is based in North Carolina but has an agent in Northwest Arkansas.
“I started dealing with them in July,” House said. “I placed the order in late August. We finally got all the details worked out. It took them about two weeks to install [the equipment].”
House said Pleasure Park, which is also the site for the Martin Street Youth Center and the Splash Zone Water Park, is the second busiest park in the city after Dupree Park, where a majority of the city’s baseball, softball and soccer fields are located. Pleasure Park also has a pavilion and picnic tables.
“The pavilion was rented a lot for birthday parties during warm weather,” House said. “With no playground equipment, rentals have really slowed down over there. I know this will bring that back.
“The park is used a lot, not only by the neighborhood kids and people close to it, but during the summer when our water park is open, it’s used a lot even by out-of-town people.”
House, who has been with the parks department for 10 years, said the previous playground equipment looked old when he started.
“It was old equipment, and it just would not pass safety inspection,” House said. “There was not much we could do to get it to pass. At that point, we had to pull it.”
That was about a year and a half ago.
“Our Martin Street Youth Center is on that property,” House said. “We’ve got between 75 and 95 kids a day in there after school. We do a feeding program. There are a lot of kids who come there every day.”
Lane said the behavior of the students who attend the after-school program is better.
“The attitudes of those kids, from Day 1 when the park was put in, were a lot smoother,” he said. “There weren’t very many conflicts, and they are tired. They are having fun. They love it.”
House said a piece of
equipment was installed for ages 2 to 5 and one for ages 5 to 12, and there are two base swings and a spinner.
The equipment for the younger children has ladders and a slide. The equipment for the older children has a climbing apparatus, a slide and jumping pods. The spinner allows children to stand on it while holding on to ropes while it is spun. Lane said the children love the spinner.
“Younger and older kids as well play on it,” he said. “The object is to get on the spinner and see how many can get on and see how fast they can go. The only regret is that when it’s cold, we have to limit their time to go out there and play. It’s a new toy, a shiny object.” mbuffalo@arkansas online.com.