Beaufort could spend $300k on a popular downtown playground. What do you want to see?
The city of Beaufort plans to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to overhaul a playground in a popular downtown park and wants your input.
City officials plan to replace equipment in Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park. The current playground, installed in 2006, has swings, play structures replicating ships and a historic building and tables and benches in the fenced area in the east end of the park. The park looks over the Beaufort River and Richard V. Woods Memorial Bridge.
New equipment is expected to cost $250,000 to $300,000 and once ordered would take up to six weeks to install.
“Playground equipment, like everything else, has a shelf life,” Downtown Operations Director Linda Roper said in a news release.
The city recently won a new playground set in a contest at a conference Roper attended. The new piece was valued at $38,000 and will be added this year to Washington Street Park in the city’s Northwest Quadrant neighborhood.
With Pigeon Point Park serving the north side of the city, the waterfront park downtown is among the most popular with local and visiting families and attracts a crowd during the regular festivals in the park.
The city is accepting comments through a survey accessible on its website, www.cityofbeaufort.org. A public forum is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Jan. 30 on the first floor of City Hall.
The waterfront playground has been a target for vandals in the past.
Someone smashed a tube slide and broke the tandem child-toddler swing in 2015. The city has also investigated instances of a park bench being thrown in the river, and graffiti painted on the park’s trees and monuments.
But there have been no recent incidents in the park, city spokeswoman Kathleen Williams said. City officials are confident that the regular visitors, landscaping contractors, public works employees and police patrolling downtown will help protect the investment in new equipment, she said.
“It’s not that vandalism will never be an issue,” Williams said. “But we think there are a lot of eyes on the park.”
This story was originally published January 23, 2020 at 4:45 AM.
