The company that designed Wildcat Park will be in charge of creating a replacement for the beloved local playground, which was torn down this year because of safety concerns.

The Corvallis School Board on Monday night voted unanimously to hire Leathers & Associates of Ithaca, N.Y., to plan, design and supervise construction of a new playground on the old Wildcat Park site at Wilson Elementary School. The board authorized payment of nearly $48,000 for the job.

Leathers & Associates was one of three companies bidding to do the work. Not only did it submit the least expensive bid, but it also scored highest on a Wildcat Park subcommittee’s matrix of weighted criteria, which included factors such as design philosophy and the ability to create a new play structure that closely resembles the original.

“Part of the goal was to get vendors that could provide some of the look and feel of the old Wildcat Park,” subcommittee chairman Nason McCullough told the board. “They actually have the best ability to re-create that look and feel.”

Wildcat Park was built in 1989, largely with volunteer labor, serving as a community park as well as a playground for Wilson Elementary. The school district unexpectedly shut it down in January after a consultant reported that the elaborate wooden play structure was deteriorating and might pose a safety hazard.

Repairing the sprawling collection of mazes, towers, tunnels and bridges was deemed too costly, and it was dismantled this fall. Some elements have been saved with the idea of incorporating them into the new structure.

“There were safety issues both in the condition and the construction, based on today’s standards,” district facilities manager Fred Wright said after Monday’s meeting. “The way the thing was built, you had to take the whole thing apart to get to the parts that needed repair.”

Although the playground might have lasted a bit longer if Leathers’ original recommendation to use yellow pine had been followed (pressure-treated Douglas fir was used instead), the park had stood up reasonably well to the mid-valley’s soggy climate, Wright said.

According to preliminary estimates, it will cost in the neighborhood of $180,000 to $200,000 to build a replacement structure. The district has set aside $100,000 left over from the 2002 facilities improvement bond toward the project. A citizens’ group has formed to coordinate volunteers and raise money for construction and maintenance costs.

Barry Segal, a project manager with Leathers & Associates in New York, said the company was happy to have a chance to design the new Wildcat Park.

“We hate it when one of our projects is torn down because we know there’s a lot of fun value in there, a lot of memories,” Segal said.

Using modern materials such as structural plastic support members, metal handrails and composite decking, Leathers can design a replacement structure that should last “indefinitely,” Segal said. At the same time, he said, the company strives to maintain the look of a wooden play structure through the use of paint and stain, with brighter colors used sparingly as accents.

“They try to make the colors look like wood,” he said. “It will give you the same feel of a Leathers playground because of the way we build it.”

And, just as it did with the original Wildcat Park, the company will try to involve an army of community volunteers in the construction process. Typically, Segal said, it takes about five days to build a play structure, working three four-hour shifts per day.

“We look for about 100 people per shift, and on weekends we try to double or triple that,” Segal said. “Now, that’s a lot of people. But when it works, it works great.”

The next step toward reviving the playground will be a “design day” early next year, said Mark Hoffman, chairman of the Wildcat Park Steering Committee. Students at Wilson Elementary will be asked what they’d like to see in the new play structure, and the public will have a chance to weigh in as well.

“Someone from Leathers will come out and talk to the kids, the community and the district and start to put together a rough picture of what the new park will be like,” Hoffman said.

Bennett Hall can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.