The renovation of the Mary Moss playground on John and Lytle streets is due to be completed by the end of July, Princeton officials said this week about a project that is off schedule by more than a month.
Officials pointed to a rainy early part of the year and delays in receiving equipment. The $700,000 job includes a new water play area, called a “sprayground,” a pavilion and landscaping, among other things.
Originally, officials intended to hold a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 20, but that has been pushed off until Aug. 8. Members of the public will be able to use the playground before that date, however.
“We think construction is going to be done by the end of the month,” municipal engineer Deanna Stockton said on July 16. “As soon as the contractor is done, it will open up.”
She said the project is about a month-and-a-half late, envisioned to open in mid-June. But because of weather-related delays in the year and other issues, that was pushed back. Stockton pointed to the rain in the March to May period.
“They started work around that time,” she said, “and they had a lot of delays because they just couldn’t work in that confined space in the mud.”
She said there was also “slow delivery” of playground equipment and some of the sprayground equipment.
“I’m looking forward to the playground opening as I’m sure everybody else is who has been waiting for it,” Mayor Liz Lempert said on July 16. “I think it’s frustrating to everybody that it’s taking longer than expected, but it’s going to be really wonderful when it opens. I’m looking forward to that day.”
The Princeton Council, in June 2016, approved renovating the playground, with officials looking to start the job in 2017. While demolition of the site started that year, the project got put on hold amid delays in getting bids out to construction companies. Work got going this year.
Lempert, addressing this year’s delays, called it “frustrating that it’s taking longer than expected” to build the playground.
“It is going to be really wonderful when it’s opened,” she said.
The playground is named for the late Mary Moss, a Princeton resident who worked at a local nursery school and was seen as a maternal figure by residents of the once predominately black Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood where the playground is located.
The playground used to have a wading pool that long-time residents of the neighborhood remembered swimming in as children. As part of the renovations, the pool was taken out, to be replaced by the water play area.
