Posted: 3:12 pm Mon, December 5, 2011
By ?MARISA HELMS
Tags: Andrea Weber, Chris DesRoches, construction costs, Falls 4 All, Flagship Recreation, Madison?s Place, Minneapolis Parks & Recreation Board, Peggy Halvorson
Peggy Halvorson, a nurse and Edina resident, started fundraising about a year ago for the future Falls 4 All park at the Wabun Picnic Area (above) in Minnehaha Falls Park in Minneapolis. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)
A couple of nearly million-dollar playgrounds are planned for the Twin Cities metro area.
In Woodbury, a small group of residents is raising funds to build Madison?s Place, and in Minneapolis, volunteers are working with the city to construct Falls 4 All at the Wabun Picnic Area in Minnehaha Falls Park.
Each playground will be between 15,000 and 20,000 square feet in size. When built later next summer, Madison?s Place and Falls 4 All would give children and families with disabilities a much needed option.
In Minnesota, about 31,000 children, or 3 percent of children ages 0 to 14 years old, have at least one disability. But there are currently just three ?universal access? playgrounds in the entire state: in Rochester, Red Wing and St. Cloud.
?Universal access? is defined as a play space where children or parents with physical, developmental or sensory disabilities can use 70 percent to 100 percent of the equipment. Inclusive playgrounds go beyond the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines, which require that 50 percent of the equipment be accessible.
These play areas must have good integrative design, lots of land and many ramps and platforms so that users with mobility devices, including wheelchairs and walkers, can have access to a variety of experiences, including sliding, swinging, spinning, bouncing and balancing.
?It allows kids more freedom,? said Minneapolis Parks & Recreation Board planner Andrea Weber. ?It?s really fun, but it costs a lot more.?
Weber said the Parks & Recreation Board is kicking in $300,000 toward construction of the Falls 4 All playground. The money is coming from a grant from the state?s Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment (the 2008 voter-approved amendment that increased state sales tax by 3/8 of 1 percent to fund environmental and arts programs).
The rest of the budget, a whopping $700,000, will be raised by a fundraising committee of the nonprofit People for Parks.
?I do get overwhelmed sometimes,? said Peggy Halvorson, a nurse and Edina resident who started fundraising for Falls 4 All about a year ago. To date, the project has raised $100,000.
?We?re not trying to build a handicapped playground,? said Halvorson. ?We?re trying to build a playground where everyone can play together. Inclusiveness in society is so important, and having a playground where all children can come together regardless of ability is so important. We learn to accept each other when we play together.?
Halvorson said that while many people think the playground is a good idea, raising money for it has been a hard sell given the poor economy. Most of what her group has raised so far has been small $20 to $50 contributions from individuals, she said.
?A lot of the foundations that had a lot of money to give away four or five years ago are feeling pinched,? said Halvorson. ?The amount they have available to give away has dropped quite a bit. They already have groups and programs that rely on them, so to take on something new is a real challenge.?
CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE. St. Louis Park-based Flagship Recreation designed a playground for Cornelia Elementary School in Edina that has universal access options. (Submitted rendering: Flagship Recreation)
Raising funds for Madison?s Place in Woodbury also has been difficult.
The city of Woodbury is contributing land for the playground at Bielenberg Sports Center, as well as donating $125,000 to the site?s preparation.
According to Dana Millington, the Woodbury resident behind the project, the initial fundraising goal was $1 million when she started in 2006. But, she has since adjusted expectations because she just hasn?t been able to raise that kind of money. She now thinks the project will come off for a total cost of about $700,000. She?s still trying to raise about $250,000.
The biggest budget eater in these projects is required rubber surfacing, which installs for about $20 per square foot (compared to $3 per square foot for sand).
?It?s crushed rubber with a concrete base,? explained Chris DesRoches of Flagship Recreation, a St. Louis Park-based playground design and installation company. ?It?s not cheap. And the actual installation is just like concrete, but it?s very labor intensive. It requires a binder,? he said, ?so, you pour it in, mix it up; pour it again, mix it again,? and so on.
Though expensive, rubber surfacing is durable and is considered an integral safety and mobility element for inclusive playground design.
DesRoches said that aside from the rubber surfacing, constructing a universal access playground is not at all complex.
?It?s very similar to building a fence,? said DesRoches. ?You dig a hole in the ground, put a post in it and pour in the concrete. Then you just attach all the components ? the climbers and ramps ? to those posts. It goes together easily.?
Other construction costs include site excavation and preparation, labor and building accessible walkways to access the play structure.
Ultimately, the size and level of accessibility of the new playgrounds in Minneapolis and Woodbury will be determined by the amount of money the volunteers are able to raise by next summer when construction is scheduled to begin for both projects.
Source: http://finance-commerce.com/2011/12/universal-access-playgrounds-planned-in-twin-cities/
tucson weather peyton hillis cl p cl p andy rooney andy rooney groupon ipo
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.