Stolley Park boast new playground equipment

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (KSNB) - Upgrades have been going on at Stolley Park in Grand Island.

The park now has new playground equipment, and will be opening its splash pad over the weekend. The full project cost the city approximately $400,000.

“With the new equipment it’s just more it’s more slides, swings, so it’s pretty similar to what was there except more you know improved modern,” Todd McCoy, Director of Parks and Rec for the city of Grand Island, said. “You know some of the equipment was older. Some of the slides were the old metal slides, where now it’s more of the modern plastic slide.”

McCoy said the switches reduces the amount of heat the slide absorbs and going from a wading pool to splash pad will help city maintenance workers.

“The wading pool was having a lot of maintenance issues,” McCoy said. “You know the modern trend now is to kind of go away from wading pools and have more splash pads. You know it’s less labor intensive for staffing.”

McCoy said the splash pad will be great for families with toddlers. Even with the splash pad yet to open, local are trilled with the improvements.

“I think it’s a big improvement and it modernizes the park,” Sandy Engle of Grand Island said. “It use to be a wading pool here and the thing now is a splash park. So we’re looking forward to when it opens.”

Engle’s grandson, Elijah said he enjoyed the new interactive features the new equipment. Officials also want to warn people there are new grass area that still have not rooted into ground.

“We did have a lot of sod and some grass seed that we had to plant,” McCoy said. “So we’ll have some roped off areas, just kind of stay off of those areas. So just ask for a little patience and you know try to avoid those areas where there’s new grass.”

McCoy said along with the splash pad, Grand Island Oasis and Grand Island public pools will also open this weekend.

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