Tuesday night’s meeting about the Twin Lakes Playground rebuild started off with good news. The playground will be rebuilt, and most of that rebuild will be covered by the City and Borough of Juneau’s insurance company.
Parks and Recreation Director Kirk Duncan explained that the city’s insurance company will dedicate “seriously north of $1 million” for the project, leaving the city to raise $100,000 for the deductible. For comparison, the public raised around $500,000 when it built the playground in 2007.
Fundraising efforts have gotten off to a fast start, as the Juneau Community Foundation already has more than $12,000 from community members. People can still make checks out to the Juneau Community Foundation if they want to donate.
Still, this process won’t be finished overnight, as evidenced by the fact that it took more than two years to build the playground originally.
“Given the timeline of the last build, it is difficult to imagine we will have a playground up and running this summer,” Duncan said. “If I was to make an estimate, I would say the build will probably start next spring.”
Duncan spoke to a crowd that the city estimated at 300-strong at Centennial Hall on Tuesday, answering questions for well over an hour from members of the public who wanted to help after two 13-year-old boys were taken into juvenile state custody on charges related to burning the community playground down on April 24.
Duncan estimated that the cleanup of the current site will take somewhere between one and three months, and planning should take some time as well. The construction project will not begin during the winter, so the earliest Duncan sees the construction starting is next May, which would put it on track to be finished either around or before Labor Day 2018.
Fundraising options
In terms of fundraising, multiple endeavors cropped up during the meeting. The biggest financial commitment thus far has come from BP Alaska, that said it would donate $25,000 as a matching grant, meaning that if the community raises $25,000, BP Alaska will then donate the next $25,000.
News of the playground’s demise has traveled throughout the state, and that statewide awareness has led to the first official CBJ fundraiser. Pete Kelly, President of the Alaska State Senate, offered to help. Kelly plays in a band, and said he’d like his band to play a show to raise funds.
Mayor Ken Koelsch quickly was able to coordinate with Kelly and schedule the show for 7-9 p.m. May 15 at Centennial Hall. Koelsch said the gesture shows just how important Juneau’s community effort is to others.
“It’s not only Juneau that looked at something and saw a community that did a very outstanding thing,” Koelsch said. “It’s the rest of the state.”
The phrases “we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again” and “we’ll build it bigger and better” popped up frequently, and many community members appeared prepared to leap into the fundraising stage.
Representatives from the carpenters’ and ironworkers’ unions spoke and said they would chip in. One artist said he would be willing to have an art show with his and friends’ artwork that could raise money for the rebuild. One mother said her 9-year-old son had already made a list of the tools he’d need to help with the construction of the park, which induced a round of smiles.
The next steps
Those in attendance were encouraged to turn in comment cards with suggestions on them, and dozens of them stacked up after the meeting. Parents, children and community members left the meeting feeling better, including Karen Mayeda, whose grandchildren used to play at the park.
While her granddaughter talked about wanting to join the rebuilding effort, Mayeda said the high amount of willing volunteers was a pleasant surprise to her.
“That is encouraging,” Mayeda said. “Very encouraging.”
The next steps include clearing the area and putting together a steering committee to put a plan into place. Duncan said it’s still early in the process, so there’s no timeline as of yet, but the city isn’t looking to waste any time in getting moving on this.
The main question Tuesday was how the city and the community would balance the work. There are many options made available by the insurance company’s commitment to the rebuild, including an offer to pay for the city to contract the construction work out.
Many in attendance Tuesday, however, wanted members of the community to do the construction work, just as thousands of volunteers did the work on the original playground. Deputy City Manager Mila Cosgrove said it could be a mix of contractors and community members that rebuild the playground.
Duncan concurred, saying nothing has been ruled out yet.
“It’s a great option to have it totally funded by the city and by the insurance company, and that’s great,” Duncan said, “but there are lots of other really good options as well, and we’re not going to be closing any doors at this point.”
Clarification: This article has been updated to clarify that the company offering the matching grant is BP Alaska, which is the Alaska chapter of British Petroleum.
Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com or 523-2271.
Kirk Duncan, director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, speaks in front of nearly two hundred people who attended a meeting at Centennial Hall on Tuesday, May 2, 2017, about the rebuilding of Project Playground at Twin Lakes. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)
Fundraising efforts to rebuild the Twin Lakes Playground have gotten off to a fast start, as the Juneau Community Foundation already has more than $12,000 from community members. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)
