Reviewed by: Michael Seale
$1 million inclusive playground in Decatur coming this fall—get a first look now
Reading time: 4 minutes
The City of Decatur significantly upgraded its playground plans for the $52.5 million Wilson Morgan Park and Decatur Recreation Center project, increasing an existing $350,000 playground line item to $1 million for a play space designed for kids of all abilities. The new inclusive playground in Decatur will be located northwest of the new rec center.
The entire park project is on track to wrap up by Aug. 10, according to Decatur Parks & Recreation Director Hunter Allen.
Contingency funds helped cover some of the increase, Allen said, also crediting major commitments from community partners, including the Kiwanis Club of Decatur and local nonprofit Everyday Sunshine, which has raised awareness and funding for an inclusive playground in Decatur for the past five years.
Read on for more details about the project and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get news like this delivered to your inbox.
Quick reference
What will the new playground look like?
Allen explained that while the original playground design included some inclusive equipment, the pieces were separate from the main play structure.
“What we ended up doing was reconfiguring it to where it was one fluid space. That way we wouldn’t have kids who wanted to play on different structures feeling isolated on one piece of the playground.”
Decatur Parks & Recreation Director Hunter Allen
The city worked with Struthers Recreation in Birmingham to expand the playground and make it more inclusive. The Everyday Sunshine team had already done extensive research on equipment, so Allen enlisted their help in selecting pieces.
Cool features of the new inclusive playground in Decatur
The playground equipment company GameTime produces the pieces, and you can check out some of the many features planned for the new inclusive playground in Decatur here:
Why this playground matters for Decatur
The playground is one part of a huge project that has been years in the making and has been under construction since spring 2025.
At the heart of it is a 103,000-square-foot rec center and natatorium with a 10-lane competition pool, four basketball and volleyball courts, a mezzanine walking track, conference rooms and a concession stand with a kitchen, among other amenities.
The whole project, including the center, playground and surrounding park improvements, is budgeted at $52.5 million, funded by a 2021 3M legal settlement and a 2023 municipal bond issue. Allen said that even after this playground upgrade, the city has about a million left in the contingency fund, which made leaders comfortable with putting more into this space than initially planned.
He hopes it will set a standard for future playground projects, too:
“It was something that we, collectively as a city, felt like we needed to do for the community. My hope is that, as we develop more playgrounds throughout the city, they will all be inclusive, or ‘playgrounds for all’ may be the best way to put it. With this one being right in the center of our town, and obviously with the loss of Adventure Park, to me, it was important to double down on the investment we were making with it.”
Decatur Parks & Recreation Director Hunter Allen
Stay tuned for updates on possible soft opening opportunities to visit the new rec center and inclusive playground in Decatur later this summer.
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