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City seeks input on playful ideas for Missoula parks
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| By AJ MAZZOLINI of the Missoulian
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Photo by MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian
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Missoula Parks and Recreation wants your input. The department will be holding a design workshop Saturday where Missoula residents can help in the planning of four new playgrounds around the city that will be completed this summer.
The workshop will give children and adults a chance to peruse options for the play areas and share any ideas they may have. Missoulians will have the opportunity to discuss playground equipment, layouts, colors, benches, trails and other park features.
"(Those attending) will get to come up with ideas of the kind of playgrounds that will be best for their neighborhoods," said Parks and Recreation director Donna Gaukler. "Playgrounds are obviously very important to both children and parents."
The city will use $380,000 in stimulus funds to replace three old playgrounds and build one new one. Deteriorating play areas at Boyd, Sacajawea and Marilyn parks will be demolished and replaced with updated structures, while new play equipment will be constructed at a fourth location at Lafray Park.
The three older playgrounds were built decades ago in the late 1970s and early '80s and are among about 15 park locations around the city due to be replaced soon, Gaukler said. The playgrounds are outdated and unsatisfactory, she said.
"Playgrounds typically live to be about 30 years old," she said. "The three that we're replacing ... were built at a time prior to the current established playground safety standards. They're also very small playgrounds."
The fourth playground and park will fill a need in the River Road Neighborhood east of North Reserve Street and south of the Clark Fork River, said the chairman of the neighborhood's council.
"There are no parks in this particular area at this time," said Chairman Jeremy Flesch, also a neighborhood parent. "The construction of the playground on Lafray Lane will be the first park in our neighborhood."
A community park will provide two important things to the area, Flesch said. It will serve not just as a place for kids to play and exercise, but also as a gathering point for people who live nearby.
"We could possibly have movies in the park this summer," he said.
Construction on the four lots will generate work in the community, Gaukler said, another reason these projects are so important to the city.
"It does mean business and jobs for our economy," she said. "There's been a lot of emphasis on jobs in public infrastructure and it will provide a little bit of work."
The design meeting is meant for kindergarten-age children and older because kids will be building their own playgrounds in a craft project, Gaukler said. It will also feature refreshments, games and other playground activities, but all children must be accompanied by an adult.
The parks workshop will meet from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Joseph Elementary School on Saturday. The school is located at the intersection of Edith Street and West Beckwith Street East. Participants are asked to plan on attending the whole workshop.
AJ Mazzolini is a junior studying print journalism at the University of Montana who is interning at the Missoulian. He can be reached at 523-5251 or aj.mazzolini@missoulian.com.
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