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BY MECHELE COOPER
Staff Writer 03/27/2008

enlarge Staff photo by Joe Phelan

FORGOTTEN: A swing hangs from one chain Wednesday afternoon in the playground on Gardiner Common. Behind it, wooden play equipment is boarded up. The aging equipment could be removed as early as this week.

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Aging equipment on the playground at Gardiner Common -- slides, the climbing set, hand-rings and jungle gym -- could be removed as early as this week.

Jason Simcock, director of planning and development, said crews from the Public Works Department will remove the equipment, which is more than 20 years old, and haul it away.

The swingsets will be salvaged.

"Last year we were actually taking some parts out of the playground due to the fact that it was at the end of its useful life and was unsafe," Simcock said Wednesday.

The playground is included in plans to improve the Common, which is a city park off Brunswick Avenue.

The project is part of what officials are calling "bundled projects," a new approach to 13 different municipal projects that connect with each other.

Since January, residents and city officials have been working together toward finalizing a master site plan for the Common.

That plan, which will be presented to the City Council in April, will address how to replace the playground, map out phases to improve the infrastructure, and list other improvements such as with lighting and benches.

Barbara Oesterlin-Heath, a parent who serves on a community group called Citizens for the Common Good, said the playground might be relocated elsewhere on the Common, away from the water fountain and the gazebo, or across the street.

"There's been a lot of controversy over it," Oesterlin-Heath said Wednesday. "Some historically-minded people feel it's not a good place for a playground. So part of the debate has to do with where it will be built."

Simcock said he doesn't now know where the new playground might be built, but that councilors hired Kent Associates of Gardiner to draft a plan for the Common improvements.

Simcock said cost will determine how quickly the city can begin replacing the playground and making improvements, he said.

In the meantime, Oesterlin-Heath said, parents will have to find other playgrounds to take their children.

"Come spring and summer it's heavily used," she said, "and I don't know of anywhere else to go."

Mechele Cooper -- 623-3811, Ext. 408

mcooper@centralmaine.com

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