The Butler Rotary Club briefed city council Thursday night of its plans to renovate the Institute Hill Playground.

The club will construct a pavilion, replace fencing and will replace much of the playground equipment.

It also will have a memorial brick path made up of inscribed bricks.

A donation of $75 will give the contributor 3 lines to inscribe a memory on a brick.

“We started this project a few months back,” said Dennis Baglier of the Rotary. “We saw a need for us to help.”

New benches and picnic tables will be added under the pavilion.

Baglier said the Rotary is working with a number of people and businesses for donations of services and materials for the estimated $100,000 project.

“We’re still working on raising money,” he said.

Dale Pinkerton, president, said the Rotary hopes to begin work in mid-September.

“We still have a ways to go, but we’re well on our way to getting this project done,” he said.

Pinkerton said he hopes work will be finished by the end of October.

He said members of the club will be going door to door in the Institute Hill neighborhood to tell residents about the memorial bricks.

“Hopefully that will get us what we need,” he said.

Councilman Bill May praised the club for the work.

“These gentlemen came up with this project on their own and have put forth a great deal of effort,” he said. “I can’t give enough accolades to them for making that neighborhood a better place to live.”

Mayor Tom Donaldson said the club is a fixture in the community.

“If not for the things they do, there would be a lot of things missing in Butler,” he said.

Council at its meeting also approved spending liquid fuel tax money on rehabilitation of the Ritts Park tennis courts.

May estimated the project will cost about $6,500.

“Nothing had been done to those courts since they were built in the mid-1970s,” he said.

The city streets department will mill and repave the asphalt while the parks department will assist and paint lines.

Doing the project in house dropped its price from $28,000, May said.

“This is a quality-of-life issue,” he said. “We want people in our city to have nice parks. Both for children and adults.”