Safety Concerns With Imagination Station Could Lead to Changes

Among its swings, slides and expansive wooden playscapes, Brighton's Imagination Station has seen the addition of an uncommon playground amenity: yellow caution tape.

A closed slide due to rotting wood supporting it, exposed screws and splintering wood have spurred community leaders and volunteers to take steps toward making changes to the park, although the extent of those changes aren't clear yet.

The iconic playground in the heart of downtown by the is the subject of a proposed assessment to determine what needs to be done to fix up the 16-year-old park.

That assessment, led by architect Piet Lindhout of Lindhout Associates, will determine the immediate repairs and their costs. From there, the group will have several options: Fix up the existing park, rebuild parts of it, or start over and rebuild the entire area.

It's that last option, which was first reported on the Livingston Daily website July 10, that has residents rankled. However, the volunteers leading the group, which include city officials, business owners and parents, want to make it clear that no decisions have been made yet.

"If the dollars estimated to fix it and repair it and maintain it are too high, then there are several options on the table," City Council member Claudia Roblee said, who is part of the group. "Building new is one of those options. It's not necessarily the option."

It's not clear when the official assessment will be made just yet. Lindhout was on vacation last week, and was not available for comment on this article. There is a tentative meeting scheduled for the group of volunteers this coming week, although that date has not been set yet. Volunteers with the group said the money and help is on hand for the immediate repairs.

A Playground In Decline?

Calls for fixing the Imagination Station are just the latest by residents, who have been concerned about the playground for years now.

"I've been complaining about the condition of the Imagination Station, it's falling apart, it's not safe," Renee Pettengill of Brighton said. "I would say (I've been noticing the condition of it) five years or so, it's been deteriorating fast."

Roblee received permission from City Council at its July 8 to move forward with the assessment. Why that permission wasn't sought sooner is linked to the city's worries about the liability issues of volunteers working on city property, said Todd O'Grady, a Brighton resident and a member of the volunteer group. Roblee said those technicalities have been hammered out by the city's legal services.

Noticeable repairs so far include the area where the "spider web" used to be, a netting that kids could climb up to a structure on. The netting was removed, and now two planks board up the once-open edge. Nearby, a curly slide was caution-taped and boarded up because of the rotting wood supporting it.

Members of the group have also noticed screws popping out and splintering wood as well.

"I think it was neglected, it's something that could've been avoided," Pettengill said. "The city was given a plan to follow, and something got lost along the way."

The playground was built with volunteer efforts and donations in 1995. Roblee said the volunteers turned maintenance of the playground over to the city in 1999. She and others said they think the city didn't give the playground the highest priority.

"I think the city could've done a better job at taking care of it," Roblee said. "Although I'm not sure it should've been the city's responsibility."

Roblee said that constant fundraising should've bee done to upkeep the park. Pettengill proposed a similar idea going forward, creating a sort of "friends of the park" beneficiary group that are typical of libraries and museums to raise funds to support those institutions.

The city's Department of Public Services (DPS) is tasked with upkeep of the park. The Livingston Daily reported that 200 hours of maintenance are put into the Imagination Station annually. The director of the DPS, Matthew Schindewolf, said in that same article that despite that number, it's not enough to keep up with the true needs of the park. Schindewolf did not return multiple calls for comment on this article.

'A Complete Community Project'

No matter what the outcome of the assessment is, volunteers said that the decision will be made by the community as a whole.

"It will be a complete community project like it was in '95," Pettengill said. "The schools will get involved, the children will get involved." She said that once a decision is made, she'll be setting up a website to give people an opportunity to donate or volunteer their time.

There is some concern, if volunteers move forward on a new park, about how the original group that built it will feel about their work being torn down after 16 years.

"They need to respect the fact that people donated money and time just (16 years) ago to build this Imagination Station," O'Grady said. "If the one is deemed too expensive to bring back to its original grandeur, then they need to respect those people and bring them in on building the new one."

Roblee, a member of that original group, said she's OK with a new build if it brings together the community like it did before. She said her experience building the Imagination Station was the best community project she's undertaken in Brighton.

"I feel a little tug at my heart when they talk about maybe building a new playground, because there is a lot of sweat and blood into this playground," she said. "If my older kids that have kids now decide they want to do the same thing we did for the community, and that same experience is created of community through the project, I wouldn't have a problem with that."

However, regardless of how the Imagination Station came together and regardless as to what has happened to it since then, the volunteers are looking ahead to what needs to be done next.

"I just know the condition it's in now and want to move forward," O'Grady said. "And to move forward is to get the Imagination Station place fixed so it's a safe place for kids to play right now, rather than next year or the year after."