The slides, swings and climbing structures going in at Volunteer Park should be ready for play in a month, according to Seattle Parks. 

“There are slides, stairs, a bridge, a small climbing wall, a tube, and various structures for climbing and walking,” says Dewey Potter, spokesperson for Seattle Parks.  

The park, which is designed to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, will also have play equipment and pathways to allow kids with disabilities access the play area, wading pool, restrooms and west parking lot, according to Seattle Parks.

“There are also swings for kids of varying ages, and one that is designed for use by kids with disabilities (though any child can use it,” Potter says.

The design of the new pathways is sensitive to the original Olmsted plan and mimics the historic promenade. The existing Block (“bone”) play sculpture created by Chas Smith in 1962 will remain in the renovated play area. The design also retains the shooting star paving feature and Pablo’s plaque installed as part of the 1991 NMF project.

Seattle Parks first scheduled the playground overhaul to finish mid-February, but weather and equipment replacement caused a few weeks delay, Potter says.  

“The work will probably be finished in three to four weeks, and an opening celebration will take place likely in May,” he says.

CHS first reported about the playground overhaul, funded by the Parks and Green Spaces Levy, as community planning began to update the 20-year-old equipment in 2011:

The 100-year-old-plus Volunteer Park wading pool is not going away. This and a growing list of community wants (which you can add to via a survey, below) and Seattle Parks needs have been part of the public process unfolding around the planned $800,000 overhaul of the Volunteer Park playground slated to begin sometime next summer. “There are currently no plans to change the pool to a spray-park,” planner Emily Fuller tells CHS. “We’re going to provide better access to it between the play area and the pool.”

The construction project for the new playground was pushed back to keep the area open through the summer months. Potter says the project is expected to come in under budget.

A construction bin at the site (Images: CHS)

Broadway cycle track
Meanwhile, you’ll have to wait a lot longer for another Capitol Hill civic project. The Seattle Department of Transportation planner in charge of the project says the separated cycle track portion of the streetcar and bikeway on Broadway likely won’t see any work until this fall. There has been talk from City Hall about getting the work started sooner to make Broadway a safer cycling route. Turns out, that’s probably mostly talk and the cycle track probably won’t be usable until late in the year if at all in 2013.