City Park Playground Opens After Replacement; New Amenities Added

DENVER, CO — Officials used community input to design Denver's new City Park Playground and its surrounding amenities — and on Tuesday, they celebrated the playground's reopening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

City Park's original wooden playground was constructed in 1996, and had been showing signs of wear, safety concerns and increased operational demands that "warranted a complete replacement," city officials said in a news release.

So the entire playground was replaced and new amenities were added. Among them are a dragon and castle climbing structure, a slide, towers and a rope bridge, a wavy walk, spinners, and an accessible swing and spinner merry-go-round.

A play area designed specifically for children under 5 years old is included as well.

Additionally, the city added new picnic sites and enhanced walking areas, officials said.

The $2 million project was mainly funded through the Elevate Denver Bond Program, which voters approved in 2017 to fund infrastructure and recreation improvements and other community projects — though the $60,000 inclusive swing and whirl was paid for by a LuBird Light fundraiser.

Happy Haynes, executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation, said the project "delivers on the community investment promise" officials made to residents through the bond program.

"The playground design and play elements encourage children and families of all ages and abilities to engage in active and physically healthy activities," Haynes said.

Mayor Michael B. Hancock concurred, saying the playground will "support new generations of kids' imagination for years to come."

"Our neighborhoods, communities and families here in Denver thrive because of thoughtful and strategic infrastructure investments in everything from new facilities to new playgrounds, providing everything our residents and kids need to have a great quality of life here in Denver today and well into the future," Hancock said.

City Park, Denver's largest urban park, occupies almost 320 acres between East Seventeenth and East Twenty-Third Avenues from York Street to Colorado Boulevard.

The new playground is located on the park's west side, near Duck Lake and Ferril Lake, and officials said its new play features and spaces fit "well within the existing trees and vegetation of the adjacent meadow."