Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – The City of Jonesboro recently announced that playground upgrades were underway at the University Heights Lions Club Park.

According to a City of Jonesboro Facebook post, crews have removed the old playground equipment and begun construction on a brand-new, ADA-accessible playground, designed to make the park more inclusive for children of all abilities.

Jonesboro Director of Parks and Recreation, Danny Kapales said this project, which began last week, should be done by the Nov. 1.

The project, which cost a little under $295,000, is part of Jonesboro’s Master Parks Plan and its secondary Health Accelerator Plan, which is a blueprint for retrofitting the city’s parks system to make it more inclusive and adaptive for people with disabilities.

“The playground itself was an older playground that had been put in early 2000s and it basically was tired and out of standards, and so we are updating it to a fully inclusive playground with an artificial turf surface, so somebody in a wheelchair or with a walker or some sort of disability will be able to get out on the playground with friends and family and be able to enjoy it as well,” Kapales said.

Although this is only the second week of construction, Kapales said a lot had already been accomplished with the installation of the new playground equipment.

“Nowadays they move pretty quick on getting the equipment up and now I believe we’re waiting on the turf grass to come in,” he said. “It’s going to be artificial turf like on a ball field, so it’ll be almost like fake grass – short, flat grass. It’ll be pretty cool when you go out there. It’ll be like your own grass, but it’ll be short enough that a wheelchair or walker would be able to go across it.”