Northeast News
November 21, 2013

Scarritt Renaissance residents gathered on a rainy Thursday afternoon to receive a check for $20,000 to jumpstart plans for a new playground on the site of the existing basketball courts at Anderson Avenue and Gladstone Boulevard.

“We number roughly 7,000 residents and we don’t have a single playground” said Amanda Stinger, Scarritt Renaissance playground committee chair. “Ultimately, this will be a destination playground” said Stinger who worked through the neighborhood association to secure the initial funding through the Community Capital Fund. According to organizers, the new playground will replace the existing basketball courts and occupy the area just to the north of the tennis courts.

The grant funds will be used to build an embankment slide on the steep hill going down toward the basketball courts from Gladstone Boulevard. The embankment slide will be a large slide with a knotted rope to assist people back up the hill. The project, a joint effort between the neighborhood and the Parks Department is the first in Concourse Park since the interactive fountain was completed almost a decade ago. Groundbreaking is slated for Spring 2014.