Families eagerly await new playground in downtown Edmonton

A new park in downtown Edmonton will be ready for families to use just in time for summer.

The park is located on 99 Avenue and 104 Street next to McKay Avenue School, which now functions as an archive and museum for the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB).

Edmonton police officer Nicole Davie came up with the idea for the project after her time working as a community liaison officer with downtown division. On her beat, Davie got to know the staff at the archives and she asked them why there wasn't a playground next to the old school.

"So we had a discussion about the potential of maybe having a playground," Davie said. "I noticed there wasn't any other playground within [the] downtown community and I thought we need one. There's children, there's families, there's definitely people that would appreciate a place to bring their children."

Davie said a committee was launched in February 2017 and they immediately realized fundraising was going to take a lot of work.

"It's not easy to come up with $150,000 necessarily," Davie said. "But, once we got the word out there that this is what we were looking to do we got a lot of great support and contributions."

The city got on board with the idea, as did the Edmonton Police Foundation, EPSB, the Downtown Edmonton Community League, Maclab Properties Group and architecture firm Manasc Isaac helped with the park design.

The Kiwanis Club of Edmonton also funded the project with money raised from the giant slide at K-Days. Davie said they had to have a yellow slide at the park to pay tribute to the tradition.

The Downtown Business Association was also a supporter of the project. Executive director Ian O'Donnell said this is the first park located in the core.

"There used to be one here many, many years ago but we wanted to bring it back," O'Donnell said. "We're working the city on another park that will have a larger playground and then the new Milner Library off of Churchill Square will also have a playground. So, we're going to go from zero to three in the next few years."

O'Donnell said it is important for them to give back to the community that supports them but it can also help attract more people to the core of the city.

"When they have more inclusivity, when they're more vibrant and interesting they tend to have more people using them," O'Donnell said. "So having a playground downtown, having more families come downtown, having them linger, having them live — it's going to increase the amount of business in the area."

O'Donnell said McKay Avenue has one of the largest concentrations of families in the core.

Mona Abdolrazaghi lives a block away from the park with her husband Martin Barczyk and their daughter Sophie. She said before the MacKay Avenue park existed they would use parks in Rossdale but would have to drive there. She hopes the park will be a great way to bring the community together.

"The playground makes more families come here with their kids," Abdolrazaghi said. "They come together and they play and parent ... mothers can meet and make new friends. Also, it makes the area much safer."

Abdolrazaghi loves how walkable the neighborhood is and thinks adding parks like this will make core living an option for more families instead of moving to the suburbs.

"It gives us pleasure," Abdolrazaghi said. "You can take your kids out to all those facilities that are around ... the museum, art gallery and the programs that they have at the library as well as the playground. So you don't have to live in a house to take your child out to play."

The city's 2017 Growth Monitoring Report shows a steady increase in residential developments in the core area from 2010 to 2016. The city is also aiming to have 25 per cent of new residential developments in the core and mature areas.

Davie expects the park will be done in the next couple weeks and said they plan to host a grand-opening event when construction is finished.

With files from Claudette Germain