Organizers unveil plan for Wildcat Park and ask for help to build it

Call it Wildcat 2.0.

Organizers of the effort to replace Wildcat Park, shut down and dismantled last year amid safety concerns, unveiled a new design this week that blends elements of the old playground with new features, new materials and new approaches to safe, inclusive play.

“At this point there still might be minor changes, but I would guess 95 percent of what you see here is final,” said Mark Hoffman, chairman of the Wildcat Park Steering Committee.

The new design comes from Leathers & Associates of Ithaca, N.Y., the same firm that drew up plans for the original Wildcat Park, built by an army of community volunteers at Wilson Elementary School in 1989. The company sent a designer to Corvallis last month to ask Wilson students what they wanted in the new playground, and many of their suggestions have been incorporated into the blueprints.

“There’s a lot of stuff in here,” Hoffman said. “If we get the money to build it, we’re going to have a great park.”

The schematic drawing prepared by Leathers shows a main play area arranged in two parallel “runs” with various structures linked by bridges, ramps, elevated walkways, ladders and balance beams, much like the old Wildcat. There’s a third run with ladders and overhead rings set closer to the ground for disabled youngsters.

Durable plastic and metal structural elements will take the place of the old park’s wooden members, which deteriorated more quickly than expected in the Oregon rain.

There’s a rocket ship and a tower, a rock wall for climbing and a fire pole for sliding down, a slide that curls around under itself and another with three parallel lanes for racing with your friends, and telephone talk tubes at strategic locations.

There are lots of benches scattered around, including some that wrap around trees and some that are covered for protection from rain and sun, and there’s a long line of swings across the playground’s north end.

The entire site will be covered with a layer of wood chips to provide a protective cushion that’s still firm enough to support a wheelchair.

One new feature of the park will be a section devoted to the youngest users.

“It will be a completely fenced-in tot lot, which is a new playground standard where events for younger kids need to be separated from events for older kids,” Hoffman said.

Those “play events” include a sandbox, a bouncy bridge, a racecar kids can pretend to drive, a double slide and a giant apple with a kid-sized wormhole.

“One of the kids at design day said, ‘I’d like to have an apple with a hole in it you can crawl through like a worm,’” Hoffman said.

There’s even something called “the upside-down house,” a mazelike structure that neither Hoffman nor fellow committee member Lori Hendrick had much success explaining.

“Imagination,” Hendrick laughed. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

As wonderful as it may be, a lot of work is still required to make the imagined playground a reality.

The committee has $100,000 from the Corvallis School District to put toward construction materials but estimates a total of $250,000 will be needed. Early fund-raising efforts have so far netted just $12,000.

“We’re doing OK, but we always need more — more money and more volunteers,” Hendrick said.

The committee is preparing to get more aggressive in going after both. A brochure explaining the project has been printed, and members are starting to approach businesses about sponsorships and individuals about donations. Contributors will be offered the inducement of putting their name on a portion of the playground, with “naming opportunities” ranging from individual fence pickets to play features to whole sections of the park.

The call for volunteers is going out as well, with a Power Point presentation for service clubs in the works along with other outreach efforts. About 1,000 people will be needed to work four-hour shifts during the construction period, scheduled for May 30-June 3. Leathers & Associates will organize the work, which will range from construction to inventory management to child care.

“Leathers is committed to having something for any volunteer to do,” Hoffman said. “All you need is the desire to volunteer, and you can contribute.”

That includes the target users of Wildcat 2.0 — kids.

“There will be stuff for them to do,” Hoffman said. “There will be stations for school-age children to contribute.”

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.