By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
Two weeks ago on KYMN, we talked about how the City of Northfield was looking to renovate several parks, each with its own unique design, in the coming years. One of those parks is Central Park’s playground. Consultant Bruce Jacobson, who is leading the project, stated that they have held four meetings with different groups, including residents near the park and the daycare sent just a few blocks away. He noted that they also worked with the Historic Preservation Commission to ensure the park followed the historic status of the space.
At Central Park, Jacobsen envisioned a few improvements, primarily improvements to the playground, such as necessary fixes and adding features like monkey bars and a climber spinner:
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“So we’re going to preserve most of what you see here. We’re going to move some pieces around a little bit. We want to enhance the two-to-five-year-old play experience here and then add a couple of features for the older kids, too, so that there are challenges for everybody.” – Bruce Jacobson, Parks Consultant, KYMN News Interview
However, not all the changes focused solely on kids; several improvements were made to create a more accessible park. Jacobson stated that he worked with Age Friendly Northfield to find recommendations, sometimes relatively minor changes, but that could make a difference. For example, the slope of each entrance into the park from the road was gradual enough.
“But it just reminds us that we’re really looking at these kinds of enhancements to serve every demographic, mixed cultures, mixed age groups, that these are the places where community gathers and where more of the social interaction happens here.” – Bruce Jacobson, Parks Consultant, KYMN News Interview
As of now there is no estimated budget posted by the city, the project will continue to hear public feedback in 2025, with further designs later in the year and project approval in 2026.
View the cities page on the project here.
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