This fall, with the support of ARPA stimulus recovery funds and additional funds from Cleveland City Council, the playground at Impett Park in Cleveland’s Ward 17 will be completely replaced with an adaptive, accessible, and inclusive playground that was designed by the community. The deteriorating pavilion will be demolished to accommodate the new playground. [Photo from Friends of Impett Park]

The playground at a popular park on Cleveland’s West Side has closed for demolition and a much-anticipated renovation spurred by neighborhood volunteers.

Impett Park’s playground closed Aug. 27 for a project that will result “in a state-of-the-art and inclusive playground, designed by residents, that will set the new standard for City of Cleveland parks,” Councilman Charles Slife said in a recent message to residents.

The city has secured $750,000 for a new playground at Impett Park, according to Slife, who thanked residents who joined him in advocating “for one of Ward 17’s great parks.”

Impett Park is an almost 32-acre park on the far west side of Cleveland. It is tucked in the middle of an active residential area and is a well-used facility. Almost double the size of the next largest park in Ward 17, Impett is the central hub for outdoor activities in Ward 17. Its amenities include:

Pool (only outdoor pool in Ward 17)
Concession stand
Restrooms
Three baseball fields
Football field
Five tennis courts (two also striped for pickleball)
Wooded area with walking trails and a native species garden
Playground
Picnic shelter
155-space parking lot

As Slife mentions, this massive renovation is the result of a grass-roots effort put forth by an energetic and hard-working band of residents who have planned, plotted and planted for the past two years to improve this much-loved city park.

Under the leadership of founders Kate Catanese and Donaldson Hill, Friends of Impett Park (FOIP) has moved quickly to improve everyday use of the park. These action-oriented volunteers have passionately worked to improve their green space. FOIP has reached out to the park users to collect and collate wish lists for improving Impett Park.

An upgrade in playground equipment was number one in the top 10 most wanted improvements. Playground design reflected the community’s wishes and needs. As the playground equipment gets demolished, so too will the existing pavilion. Besides being in the footprint of the new playground renovation plan, officials felt it needed an upgrade to match the upcoming renovations.

The result of community input was a plan for a “Dream Pavilion” that is a larger, modern, handicap-accessible pavilion with electricity. Funds for such a replacement would need to come from a source separate from the playground funding.

So, on August 15, 2024, an application was sent to apply for a NatureWorks grant. Announcement of grant award recommendations are expected by the end of 2024.

The NatureWorks grant program provides up to 75% reimbursement assistance for local government subdivisions (townships, villages, cities, counties, park districts, joint recreation districts, and conservancy districts) for the acquisition, development, and rehabilitation of recreational areas.

Catanese explained the need for the grant while talking to The Land. “When it became apparent that there was no way to salvage the existing picnic shelter when the old playground would be demolished, Nora Kelley (a key volunteer at FOIP) and I met with representatives from the Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects (MOCAP) and Parks & Recreation at City Hall last December,” she said. “We proposed the idea of working together to submit an Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) NatureWorks grant to replace the picnic shelter. The result was a collaboration between Friends of Impett Park and the Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects.

“I wrote the narratives on why we needed the new shelter and Jay Rauschenbach (Parks & Recreation Planning Manager) and Michael Reder (Landscape Designer, Division of Architecture and Site Development) pulled together all of the components required by the City. Councilman Slife wrote the legislation that requested the funds from City Council to be used for the match (25% of the project cost has to be covered by a source other than ODNR). With Councilman Slife’s contribution, we were able to apply for the grant. It was sent off to ODNR today,” she added.

FOIP provided the community input from the surveys and the initial selections from catalogs to the Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects to be used in design planning at the municipal level.

This same community effort has been put forth in Impett Park by FOIP in multiple ways. On good weather Sunday mornings, hearty volunteers have recut a walkway path through a wooded portion of the park. Fundraising was done for a new drinking fountain. A well-planned rain garden project was undertaken this year to help with the pooling of rainwater. This summer, approximately 50 volunteers started painting a new mural on the pool house wall. The concession stand is stocked and open during events. The hope is that the park will continue to get better as Friends of Impett Park continues its careful planning to secure a bright future for the park and residents that benefit from it the most.

To see all the activity at Impett Park, go to https://www.facebook.com/friendsofimpettpark/