Parents will have another cure for cabin fever at their
disposal Wednesday when the Fargo Park District opens its first indoor park
with a towering playground structure at the newly expanded and renamed Courts
Plus Community Fitness.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/390350/
District officials hope the playground – the centerpiece of a roughly $4
million renovation and expansion of Courts Plus – will lead to healthier
children and new members for the publicly owned facility, which has about 5,000
members.
Park board member Joe Deutsch began pushing for an indoor playground in the
summer of 2010 to give children a place to play during cold weather. District
officials decided pairing it with Courts Plus would allow the playground to
stay open year-round and make Courts Plus more appealing.
The Junior League of Fargo-Moorhead, a women’s service club with charitable
and educational goals, got involved in October 2011. The group had been looking
to take on a large community project and, with many moms among its members,
identified the need for an indoor playground.
“Fargo, as you know, gets very, very cold, and it’s hard to find places to
bring your kids in the winter,” said Christina Snider, the league’s community
vice president.
League members and park district officials toured more than a dozen indoor
playgrounds – some multiple times – in the Twin Cities area and elsewhere,
including the 37-foot-high Adventure Peak in Edina, Minn., and the Backyard at
the Community and Cultural Center in Detroit Lakes, Minn.
With input from the league, the district
expanded its playground plan and bought the equipment from International Play
Co. of Langley, B.C. The structure is 52 feet long by 36 feet wide by 36 feet
tall. Together with an adjacent parents’ lounge, pirate ship-themed toddler
area and interactive room with exercise-based video games.
Published February 16, 2013, 11:30 PM
More images to follow, their grand opening is February 20, 2013
