PAXTON – A limited number of children ages 5 to 12 will be invited to participate in a photo shoot for a Little Tikes catalog at the new quarter-million dollar playground in Pells Park in early October, Mayor Bill Ingold told the City Council last week.
“They will be here the first week of October,” Ingold told the councilors. “As soon as we have a more precise date, I will let everyone know.”
A grand opening for the new playground is also planned now that final work on the playground has been completed, including installing a concrete walkway around the massive structure and adding park benches and more trash cans. Councilwoman Kristen Larson, chair of the council’s community committee, said she will be in touch with the mayor later this week to set a date for the grand opening.
The new quarter-million-dollar playground in Pells Park – pictured here on the evening of Thursday, Aug. 15 – will host a photo shoot for a Little Tikes catalog in early October, Paxton Mayor Bill Ingold said.
The playground has been popular with children in Paxton and beyond since its construction this spring, which was largely funded by a $250,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
On Monday, April 1, city employees began construction of the massive playground, assisted and supervised by employees of All-Inclusive Rec – the Pennsylvania-based company from which the city purchased the playground equipment last year for nearly $275,000.
The 32-foot-tall playground, which occupies a 65-by-65-foot section of the southeast side of the park, includes, among other things, a giant play structure with three slides of various sizes and covered, enclosed platforms of various heights. There are also two new swing sets nearby, including one with two bays and a total of four swings and another with two swings connected from above by a large spring so that one swing powers the other.
The new playground replaces outdated playground equipment — including an old swing set, wooden structure and slides — much of which had been in use for decades and was in poor condition, Ingold said. However, one old playground feature — a red fire truck — is still there and has been repaired, sandblasted and repainted by city workers, with new decals added. The decals, created by Paxton-based Signs & Designs, read “Pells Park Fire Dept.” in bold gold letters on a red background — just like the decals on Paxton’s real fire trucks.
Last summer, a zipline play structure was added to Pells Park and was also very popular.
Last spring, city workers and employees of the same playground contractor also constructed a new $100,000 playground in Bixby Park. That playground was originally supposed to be built in Pells Park, but was ultimately built in Bixby Park on the south edge of the city after the city learned that it had been awarded the $250,000 grant for the new playground in Pells Park and that the city was legally prohibited from using the $250,000 for any other purpose.
The mayor hopes that the park improvements throughout the city will be an attraction not only for the city’s youth, but also for those from surrounding communities.
“That’s what we want to see,” Ingold said last year. “It’s just fun to see that they have something to do and it’s close by.”
