New seating planned for park’s splash pad

TEXARKANA — The Spring Lake Park Splash Pad will soon have new seating.

The Oaklawn Rotary Club is donating $5,828 for the city to purchase and install four tables.

The splash pad is a popular attraction in Texarkana.

“We had funds left over … to purchase these picnic tables. All the rotary clubs have supported the splash pad and bringing it into town. This is our way to help continue supporting this particular project,” said Tina Bell, member of the Oaklawn Rotary Club.

The picnic tables will be wheelchair accessible.

There have been other recent improvements at the splash pad.

“We just completely redid the surface,” said Robby Robertson, Parks and Recreation director for Texarkana, Texas. “We stripped it back to its original concrete and put down a material called Tuff Coat that helps with it being slippery. It has seemed to work really good. … The surface was slippery. … We were really needing to do it badly.”

That project cost almost $10,000 and was complete before the area opened for the summer.

Next on the list of improvements is some sort of fencing.

“We’re really wanting to put, not chain link, but some sort or ornamental fencing to define the area better,” he said. “We’ve put up shade ports over the years and our next thing to put up is a fence. That’s probably going to happen next year. And we’ll probably be replacing some of the equipment like water spouts. They undergo wear and tear with kids climbing on them.”

“We haven’t done any counts this year but in the past, there were days with people just coming and going where we were averaging well over 400 people a day,” Robertson said. “We want to keep it that way. It’s a very popular thing. … For the most part, we’ve had very positive feedback and we think the majority of people really enjoy it.”

Improvement projects to the splash pad wouldn’t be possible without support from the community.

“This would not be possible without the rotary clubs doing this. We think it’s very important and a great part of Spring Lake Park to bring people out,” he said.

The Splash Pad is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily throughout the summer.

It opened in October 2012.