Image courtesy of the BWB PTA
BARNSTABLE – Nearly two years after being shut down over safety concerns, one of Cape Cod’s most beloved playgrounds is now on track to be reborn.
The Barnstable Community Preservation Committee voted earlier this month to contribute $375,000 toward reconstruction efforts at Barnstable West Barnstable Elementary School’s popular wooden playground.
The original structure was built more than 30 years ago by a team of community volunteers using privately raised funds and has served ever since as a destination for a generation of Barnstable families. The playground’s unique wooden mazes, twisty-tunnel slides, bridges, and castle towers made it and instant hit with BWB students and visitors alike.
Time and three-decades of evolving safety standards eventually took their toll on the structure however, and in 2015 the playground failed a National Playground Inspection and was deemed unsafe by inspectors from the Town of Barnstable.
Regulators rendered a laundry list of structural and safety violations that made repair impractical. Dozens turned up in the dead of winter last year for the facility’s emotional closing.
Efforts began quickly to design and fund a replacement structure that might adequately replace what was being lost. Architects took their inspiration from the unique design of the original playground and asked B-W-B Elementary School students for their input as well.
Jennifer Mullin, a member of the B-W-B Parent-Teacher Organization’s Playground Committee says that they had hoped the similarities between the original and new playground would extend even further.
“They were able, because the times were different back then, to construct the [original] playground themselves, as a community build. That is something that we had pursued as well, but after we talked to the school district and facilities director we realized that that is just not an option in today’s litigious society,” she said.
Even so, what came out of that process was a stunning and familiar rendering of a new playground, complete with mazes, twisty-tunnel slides, bridges, and castle towers. Equally stunning however, was the price tag: $550,156.84.
The school immediately committed $50,000 and another $375,000 from the preservation committee means that the project is now under construction and well on its way to completion.
Mullin said that the new playground at Barnstable West Barnstable Elementary School will be fitting tribute to the one that has been loved by so many, “One of the things that was important to our community was that whatever replaced the wooden playground or the castle playground be as unique and as special.”
By DAVID BEATTY, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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