City officials on Thursday approved a quote for renovation work to the playground at Mill Race Park.
Columbus Parks and Recreation board members approved a quote not to exceed $250,000 with Miracle Playgrounds of Indiana for what will be a like-for-like replacement of the playground, although with some minor changes.
The project was included in the parks department’s 2025 capital plan for this year, and had already been approved by the board, according to Director Mark Jones.
Associate Director of Park Operations Casey Ritz said they plan to keep the location pretty much the same.
The playground will receive new Fibar, the woodchips making up the playground’s base. Parks isn’t opting for rubber in part because of potential adverse flood events in the park.
“We look at keeping those four areas: there’s kind of three swing areas and then a play structure area,” Ritz said. “We talked through a lot of that, refreshing and seeing other options. We wanted to keep a lot of the swings and slides and all that and talk through different versions.”
The quote parks received was for $266,000, but that included elements such as demolition that parks is going to do themselves, Ritz told the board. The current playgound is past its expected life expectancy, parks officials said.
Delivery of the playground materials take about six to 10 weeks, and Ritz estimated they would get the project completed by this fall.
