LONGVIEW, Texas — During hot summer days, playground equipment gets extremely hot, making it unsafe for use.
To combat this problem, Spring Hill Park in Longview put a shade over the playground to allow children to continue to use the equipment no matter the time of day.
The City of Longview, Longview resident Carmela Davis and AMBUCS Longview Too, funded the project, which cost about $60,000.
Scott Caron, Director of Parks and Recreation in Longview, says this is a great way to end the summer break.
“Having shade structure over playground allows for people to be able to use this between one and four normally," Caron said. "You wouldn't even think about going outdoors, much less go into playground.”
Caron says the addition of the shade isn’t the only thing that is coming to the park.
“We just passed the parks bond issue back in November for $24 million," Caron explained. "And so one of the parks that will actually be updated is this park."
There are still more plans for improvements to Spring Hill Park including a splash pad and walking trail.
“And then each of the other parks, there's five other different parts throughout the community that will be improved, as well as our main sports complex,” Caron said. "The Park Broad Recreation Center will have a little bit of an addition, and then another one of our trails will be overlaid so a lot of exciting things happening in our parks recreation department.”
Caron says all the park upgrades will happen between 2020-2024.