Politics & Government

Houghton Beach Park Getting a New Playground

The popular but aging former structure is being taken out to make way for a new model chosen by Lakeview Elementary students. It's the second recent replacement; the new playground at Peter Kirk Park is proving wildly popular.

The blue playground at , replete with swinging tire, monkey bars and slides, is being removed by Kirkland Parks this week to make way for a cool new structure chosen by Lakeview Elementary students.

The new structure at the perennially popular park on Lake Washington will be the second new one built in Kirkland this year. A new playground opened at downtown about two weeks ago and is proving a hit with kids and families, despite its installation being delayed repeatedly by bad weather and drainage issues.

“Hopefully we’ll have this one opened by Memorial Day,” said Jason Filan, Kirkland Parks and Community Services operations director.  “We’re hoping for better weather. This one should go quite a bit quicker.”

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The $40,470 playground by Play World Systems (see the attached PDF file) is modeled after a ship, and was chosen by students of Lakeview Elementary, who voted over a week by placing stickers on posters of several choices.

“We received hundreds of votes, and the winning playground is the one going in, a ship,” said Filan. “The kids seemed pretty excited. This is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. It’s like democracy in action.”

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Unlike the replacement at Peter Kirk, the removal of the Houghton Beach playground has not created quite the stir.

“It’s not quite as visible of a location,” Filan said. “We post signs in advance, and in the case of Peter Kirk, it was mostly from people driving by (on Central Way) who weren’t seeing the signs. I even had one call from a lady who thought we were putting in a parking lot.”

So far, only one person has called questioning the Houghton Beach playground replacement.

Kirkland Parks maintains 24 playgrounds that each last 12 to 17 years, depending on the type of materials used and the conditions at each location. So most years, Kirkland Parks replaces two.

Filan said the new Houghton Beach playground has been christened the MV Kirkland, in honor of the longtime tour boat operated by Argosy Cruises, an historic car ferry that caught fire last year at its Marina Park moorage and could not be saved.

 

 

 

 

 


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