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The Kids Playce playground at Brewbaker Park has gotten a facelift, but is still very much the same the same park and drawing the same crowds.
“You don’t see structures like this anymore,” said Cody Taylor, who headed the construction of the upgrades at the playground, which were completed this spring. “They’re all metal and they don’t last.”
Kids Playce was originally built over a five-day period in 1994 and has been in steady use since. Taylor and Markus Ruley, supervisor of the repairs to Kids Playce, both played on it when they were kids and now bring their children to play on the playground. Both men now work for the city’s public works department and worked under Scott Dameron, who served as the project manager. Dameron also brings his son to the park regularly.
“I can’t get him away,” he said. “Every time I bring him over, he wants to stay ‘til dark, or after dark.” The process of upgrading the playground began in the summer of 2021 following an assessment by Playgrounds by Leathers, which was released in August of that year. The assessment found that “the playground has been well cared for over the years,” but that it “needs some maintenance and has some safety compliance issues.” Among the recommendations, the report summarized that “while the wood is pretty sound, it’s becoming dry and brittle and eventually will reach a point it needs to be replaced,” and that “a renovation would extend the useful life of the playground.” Repairs began in February of 2022.
The structure of the playground is still largely the same as it was when it was first installed nearly 30 years ago. About 20 percent of the wood on the playground has now been replaced with new boards of pressure-treated lumber, which matches the shade of the original wood so it blends in from a distance. Several pieces of equipment, including monkey bars, swings, and a tire swing have been replaced, with new frames for those pieces of equipment as well. A new sidewalk leading up to the entrance to the playground was put in, as were a pair of new plastic slides. The slides and the sidewalk, which were installed in March, were the last things to go in.
In an effort to stay on top of any future repairs and ensure the longevity of the playground, Ruley said, the playground “gets checked every day” and “goes through a thorough inspection” once a month. In addition to Ruley, Taylor, and Dameron, a number of other people contributed to the repairs: Allen Clark, Johnny Conner, Patrick Entsminger, Josh Hamilton, Joseph Hendricks, Eddie Ruley, Richard Smith and Ray Ulrich.
“They did a real cracker-jack job,” said Lexington Public Works Director Patrick Madigan.
