WARREN — New playground equipment is expected to be purchased for the city’s third-largest park using funds from two grants and an Environmental Protection Agency settlement.
It was announced recently during a Warren City Council health and welfare committee meeting the city will be using a $40,000 grant from the William Swanston Charitable Foundation, an $11,000 award from Creating Healthy Communities and $50,000 from an EPA settlement to pay for the equipment at Burbank Park.
“We will be installing playground equipment,” Matt Martin, director of Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership, said. “We will be reaching out to people living in the neighborhood to determine what type of playground equipment they would like to have in the park.”
The park has a number of baseball fields that are used by older teens and adults, according to Martin.
“We would like to have playground equipment there for these adults’ younger siblings,” Martin said. “This is a family-oriented neighborhood park.”
Burbank occupies 26 acres.
The effort to restore the park will be similar to what was done by Community Concerned Citizens II, TNP and the city in Quinby Park, Martin said.
Martin described the anticipated work at Burbank Park as part of TNP’s 2020 parks plan.
“This is the first major grant we’ve been able to execute since the beginning of the pandemic,” Martin said.
In addition to the work being done at Burbank, the city also has approved spending $45,000 to do a feasibility study to expand a multi-use walking trail that will go through Perkins, Packard and Burbank Parks. MS Consultants will be hired to do the study.
This study also is being paid for through a $500,000 settlement received from the EPA.
“Neither of the projects will be paid for with taxpayer funds,” Warren Safety Services Director Eddie Colbert said. “There has been a lot of work and investment made to our city parks. We’re continuing that work with these projects.”
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