August 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 26

Member to Member
Playground Development Extremes
Renovation of a Missouri park adopts a free play philosophy
By Steve Casey, RLA, ASLA

or more than 40 years, South Lea McKeighan Park was the home to youth
baseball in Lee's Summit, Missouri. When baseball leagues were relocated, the 11-acre South Lea McKeighan Park was relegated to a practice
field site and needed attention and updating. The park's highly visible location at
the corner of two busy streets gave vision to a special type of park redevelopment.
Park Design Development
Following four years of neighborhood feedback, planning and design
workshops, charettes and consultant
refinements, Lee's Summit Parks and
Recreation (LSPR) staff focused on
a master plan with the assistance of
Bowman, Bowman and Novick Architects (BBN) of Kansas City, Missouri. Careful attention was given to
the older neighboring residential area
to the south and west of the park as
well as a high school to the north and
commercial and retail to the east. The
park needed to have a welcoming feel
from the street while also conveying
the sense of an oasis in a bustling,

high-traffic urban area. One of the
overriding concepts in the redevelopment of the park was environmental
sustainability through the use of innovative stormwater management practices, use of native plant materials and
low-impact development achieved
through minimal grading and infrastructure improvements.
Another important consideration
was to acknowledge the park's recent
history with baseball in Lee's Summit,
as well as the historical significance of
the site in the early settlement of the
city prior to the Civil War. To achieve
this, a small commemorative area was
erected on a baseball field's old home

Perhaps the most attractive piece of park
equipment for young visitors, the Jupiter XXL
climbing structure features intertwined climbing nets, a slide and suspension bridge.

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plate along with interpretive boards explaining the parkland's history.
A decision was made early on in the
planning phase that South Lea McKeighan Park would return to a more
traditional neighborhood park context with walking trails, a park shelter,
playground, restrooms and open play
areas. But because of its highly visible
location, the park also needed to be
much more dynamic and appealing.
After several months of planning,
the Lee's Summit Parks and Recreation Board approved $1.9 million
to completely renovate the park with
special attention given to developing
a unique, one-of-a-kind adventure
playground. The playground needed
to give the park an identity and make
it a destination for both residents and
visitors to Lee's Summit.
Playground Vision and Design
While BBN Architects assisted LSPR
in most of the design development
and construction documents, LSPR
planning staff took the lead with a
different approach to the development
of the playground site in an effort to
be more cost-efficient and work more
directly with playground manufacturers and product representatives. Once
the location of the playground site
was chosen, LSPR posed a selection
process/design competition, asking,
" What can we do for this budget? "
The term " adventure " playground
was loosely defined by park staff in an
effort to open up a free flow of ideas.
Staff provided the companies a site
plan of the playground area indicating

August 2014 - Parks & Recreation

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