Town officials this week approved an approximately $33,000 in contracts to prepare for the installation this spring of a widely anticipated new playground at Waveny.
Rendering of the Waveny Playground
The Board of Selectmen during its regular meeting Tuesday voted 3-0 in favor of contracts to install new fencing around the Waveny Park Playground ($19,337) and to excavate and grade the area, including installation of a boulder wall around an oak tree ($14,000).
“As of now, the grading inside of the playground is complete, the granite curbing is all complete,” Superintendent of Parks Ryan Restivo told the selectmen at the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
The town also has received the playground equipment, he said, and as soon as temperatures get above freezing or hit 50-degree days, it can be installed.
Rendering of the Waveny Playground
“They could also install the Poured-In-Place surfacing,” Restivo said. “We want to have everything we can complete throughout the winter. If they could get started on the fence as soon as possible, that’d be great. And then along with that would be the grading. The next steps would be setting the patio, the main entrance. So spring of 2026 is still our goal and it’s looking that way.”
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted in favor of the contracts with New Canaan-based Gannon Rustic Fence (fencing) and Mamaroneck, N.Y.-based Pat Corsetti Inc. (grading).
Karl noted that the area where the playground is going is now “all laid out.”
“You can actually see it now,” he said. “I took a drive by yesterday [Monday] just to see what it looks like. It looks great, it’s really coming along.”
Rendering of the Waveny Playground
The selectmen asked how high the fence will be (similar in height to the wood split-rail fence for the kiddie playground at Mead Park), how many gates the playground will have (three total, two to enter/exit the park, similar to the entrance to Spencer’s Run, and a locked one for maintenance) and whether the wood in the fence will be pressure-treated (no).
Carlson asked whether the fence would use a durable wood alternative such as AZEK, saying her own split-rail fence “rots constantly.”
Parks & Recreation Director John Howe said the town will use the same wood that’s at Spencer’s Run and expects it to last 12 to 15 years.
Carlson said, “That’s super aggressive,” adding that she is “very particular about things looking like wood, not like plastic or vinyl” while noting that “all qualities of wood are diminishing.”
“The quality of wood is just not what it used to be,” she said.
Howe said the playground will be in “a fairly dry area.”
“The posts do not get set in concrete because that will definitely rot them out very quickly,” he said.
The playground is a joint effort of the town and a private Friends of Waveny Park Playground group that has fundraised and advised on equipment. The 501(c)(3) organization’s members include Monica Capella, Lauren Connolly Nussbaum, Hilary Ormond and Meredith Tobitsch.