Grant to fund Middlesex playground
A Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources grant will finance the construction of a playground at the Middlesex Township Community Park.
The project consists of the installation of a new playground on the site of the old baseball field dugouts at the park at 133 Browns Hill Road in Middlesex.
The $204,500 grant is set aside for “work to include construction of pedestrian walkway; installation of play equipment with required safety surfacing; (Americans with Disablities Act) access, landscaping, project sign and other related site improvements.”
Township manager Adam Hartwig said the project is a year in the making.
“We did a site plan with our engineer trying to tie in the trail we just paved with where we anticipated a future playground site (would be), and where we anticipate building our pavilion next year along with the parking lot,” he said. “We didn't want to have to tear this trail up in the future. The trail provides ADA accessibility to everything that we are going to do.”
Construction on the pedestrian walkway began in the fall, and the finishing touches will be completed in spring.
“The base layer of asphalt is down, and the only thing left is the top coat, the wearing course of asphalt. That will be done probably in March or April, once the weather warms back up and the asphalt plants open,” Hartwig explained. “People can use the trail now — it's usable and it's all paved, we just need the final wearing course of asphalt.”
The township signed a quote in December for the playground and anticipates delivery in mid to late March. The goal is to have the playground constructed by June 1.
One feature in particular of the playground ties into Middlesex Township's long-term goals to create a playground that is accessible for children with special needs or disabilities. The township worked with Chatham University's occupational therapy graduate program to create a comprehensive plan and study laying out designs and budgetary numbers for what an all-inclusive playground would require.“There's not something like that around here, and that's not good, that's not what we want. We need to provide something for everybody to use,” Hartwig said. “We wanted to work with Chatham to develop a plan, and developing that plan through the graduate program was at no cost to us but gave us a layout and dollar figures.”The new playground funded through the recent DCNR grant will include a poured-in-place fall surface, and the future accessible playground project will be placed right next to the current site.“While some playgrounds have loose mulch or rubber, this material we're going to put in is poured, so there's no loose rubber or mulch to get in people's shoes,” Hartwig said. “One of the reasons we're doing the poured- in-place fall surface is so we can connect both of these playgrounds together on the one surface. We don't want to exclude children. We want to provide something for everyone to do, we want these children to be able to interact together.”The accessible playground may include wheelchair-accessible structures, along with slides with rollers instead of conventional slides in order to avoid building up static electricity that could impact children with hearing aids.“Things like that — that we don't think about, and sometimes take for granted — those are the types of things that special needs playgrounds provide for,” Hartwig said. “We have the plan for it, and I'm going to start swinging for grants after we finish this project and close this grant out. We might have to do it in phases, but as soon as we can get the funds for it, we're going to go for it. There's really a need for that.”
