(Seguin) — Construction is officially underway for the city of Seguin’s newest playscape area at Max Starcke Park. The community recently gathered to celebrate the start of construction of the new Kids Kingdom Playscape on the park’s east side. The celebration focused on the efforts that went behind the purchase of the new amenity and the new quality of life feature that will be added in the Seguin community.
The playground was funded in part by a Niagara “Perk Your Park” grant that community members helped the city secure. City officials say thanks to the community’s overwhelming support during a 6-week public outreach campaign, the city won the $75,000 grant to assist with rebuilding playscape that was removed from the park last spring due to safety issues.
Covering the majority of the cost, however, was park development funds that are collected from new housing developments. Jack Jones, the Seguin Parks and Recreation director, says the total cost for the new playground is $650,000. He says the ability to fund this playground with no taxpayer money is a win-win especially when you consider the cost of the original Kids Kingdom.
“It did cost $100,000 back in 1995. It sustained damage in the flood of 1998. So there was a rebuild and we opened again in 1999. In February of last year as you all know, the old wooden playscape was over there and it was 28 years old and it need to go. It needed to be replaced. So that is why we are here today to ground break for this new inclusive playscape,” said Jones.
City Manager Steve Parker says the playground is more than just a great place for families, it’s an investment in Seguin’s growth. He says the park is just one more way to welcome the future of this community.
“This is an exciting day. Since I’ve become city manager, this has become one of the fastest growing cities in all of the South Texas area. We are growing 3 to 5,000 people a year so we’ve been doing every type of study that a city can do because the one thing I hear is that they want to grow smart, right? So, we’ve done a comprehensive plan, we’ve done downtown plans, we’ve done park master plans and the two things we hear — we want to preserve our heritage and the history and the other thing, is we want quality of life projects in Seguin and to me, this is a great quality of life project. This city council over the last several years has invested over $4 million to our parks system and it’s really really exciting to see all the new families come here, the existing families being able to have these resources — splash pad, playground equipment, pickleball courts and that’s growing in tourism from all over to come into our community and really put Seguin on the map. But it takes a lot of people. This was a great venture,” said Parker.
Jones says what makes the playground even more attractive is that it will include a design that will be unique to any other park space in this Central Texas area.
He says among the inclusive play structures will be the Temple Trolley that was designed in collaboration with Dr. Temple Grandin, inventor, author and autism advocate. The Temple Trolley offers gliding, spinning and swinging in one collective fun package.
In addition, the playground will operate on the ground level so that access to equipment is available to everyone.
Welcoming all children to play is Seguin Mayor Donna Dodgen. Dodgen says the city can’t wait to fast forward to the park’s ribbon cutting.
“This is such a wonderful opportunity and you know, we have made a conscious effort and we made a commitment to continue every piece of equipment that we add to a park for quality of life will be an all inclusive piece of equipment. That’s very important. It gives me chills to think about. It gives me chills to think that in the past, all children couldn’t play here and so that’s very very important to me,” said Dodgen.
Jones says adding to the quality of life through the parks system has already proven successful as seen with the construction of the pickleball courts and of the new Bauer Park located on College Street.
“The city of Seguin has made a significant investment in parks, playgrounds especially here in Starcke Park. This is our legacy park. This was built in 1938,” said Jones.
City officials, who gathered for the groundbreaking on Tuesday afternoon, say they are hoping to have the new playground ready to go by early summer if not sooner.