New Fitness Park coming to Marion

New Fitness Park coming to Marion

City will spend $ 40,000 on exercise stations at Brunetti

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Marion will be getting a new attraction at Brunetti Park — a fitness park.

The city will spend up to $40,000 to create an area at the park complete with outdoor fitness equipment and park benches.

“It’s going to be a really nice addition to the park,” said Parks and Recreation Director Andy Rawls.

“These kinds of parks are catching on in a lot of cities, especially with younger, more fitness conscious people.”

Rawls said the city will pour a 46 foot in diameter concrete pad at the southeast corner of the park.

“It’s going to be near that open area right by the bathrooms,” Rawls said.

The new fitness park will have about six to eight pieces of equipment where users will be able to do plyometrics and stationary types of exercises including an elliptical machine.

Rawls said they had originally thought about putting the equipment at different points around the walking trail but decided it would be easier to maintain if it was installed in one area.

“That would have been a maintenance nightmare,” Rawls said. “So we thought it best to go with one location. And if we want to add on at some point, we can always do that.”

The city had originally budgeted $30,000 last year to buy the equipment but it got too late in the year and officials decided to roll it over into this year.

The cost to build the park came in over budget at $36,683 which includes the cement work for the pad, but city officials decided to use money from a parks fund which has $45,000 in it to cover the difference.

Rawls said the equipment cost $33,183 which was a little more expensive than he projected, but comes from Landscape Structures which is one of the top vendors for this type of equipment.

“I checked in to a few other companies and looked at prices,” Rawls said. “A lot of the stuff looked cheaply made. It didn’t seem to have the quality and a lot of it was more expensive than what this was.” The city did get a nearly $1,000 discount on the equipment through the Technology Innovation for Public Safety (TIPS) program.

The Parks and Recreation Committee voted to recommend the city council approve spending up to $40,000 in order to add three to four park benches.

“I’ve had some moms ask me about benches,” said Councilman Kelly O’Neal, who brought up the idea about installing benches.

“That’s a pretty good idea,” Rawls agreed.

The park will take about four to six weeks to build and should be completed in November.

Designs call for the new Fitness Park at Brunetti Park in Marion to have six to eight exercise stations for residents to use.

Image courtesy of the City of Marion

By Mark Randall