BERLIN – Town officials will seek grant funding for new playground equipment at Henry Park.
The Berlin Town Council agreed last week to seek grant funding for replacement of the aging playground equipment at Henry Park.
“I think it’s a solid fit,” Mayor Zack Tyndall said.
According to Town Administrator Mary Bohlen, the town applied for close to $1 million in grant funding from the Community Parks and Playgrounds program last year for an inclusive playground at Stephen Decatur Park.
“They simply could not commit that much funding to one town…,” Bohlen said. “Their entire budget is not much higher than that one project.”
In an effort to regroup and move forward, Bohlen said the town reviewed its list of potential park projects in need of funding.
“What had been proposed as the next project on our development plan was phase one of the skate park,” she said. “We’re not ready for that.”
Rather than let the grant application deadline pass by, she said the town had explored the cost of a new piece of playground equipment for Henry Park. The large red and yellow unit at the park was purchased in 2001 and is increasingly difficult to repair and maintain. Bohlen said town staff wanted to apply for grant funding for the replacement of that structure for now, until the town was ready to seek funding for the skate park.
“The plan is to move forward with replacing the playground unit with a larger playground unit at henry park,” she said. “It allows us to take advantage of the grant this year and not let that opportunity slip by and to replace an aging unit that is inevitably going to need replacement sooner rather than later.”
Tyndall said the project, which is not expected to exceed $250,000, seemed to be an appropriate fit for the grant program.
“It fits squarely within what the available amount of funds could be,” he said.
The council voted unanimously to authorize the grant application.
