Jonesboro, AR — (JonesboroRightNow.com) — June 12, 2025 — Construction continues on Allen Park’s new inclusive playground and splashpad, which is to be completed soon.
Director of Parks and Recreation Danny Kapales said the project, which began in late April, was part of the Jonesboro Master Parks Plan and its secondary Health Accelerator Plan, which is a blueprint for retrofitting Jonesboro’s Parks system to make it more inclusive and adaptive for people with disabilities.
Right now, the city only has one other all-inclusive park, the Miracle League Park. The plan identified two parks to make more inclusive, which are Allen Park and Northside Park. Kapales said Allen Park was selected due to the many people living in the area who have children.
Kapales said there is currently no timeline for when work will begin on Northside Park, but that they want to complete work on Allen Park first.
“If you or your child is confined to a wheelchair, there’s going to be ramps that’ll take you all the way up. A child in a wheelchair will be able to go all the way over to the slide, transition to the slide and slide down to their parent,” Kapales said. “That’s kind of the point of having it set up this way. Notice the guards on the edges, so a wheelchair can’t go off the side, but they can get to the edge and play. They can look over the edge. They can play with other children.”
Kapales said the project will be completed around the end of June or the beginning of July, weather dependent.
The playground has rubberized surfacing, wheelchair accessible ramps and walkways, shaded sitting areas, sensory play structures, slides, swings, braille panels and more. It also has a visual communication board, which is used for nonverbal communication.
As part of the Health Accelerator Plan, the playground portion of the project was made possible due to a $189,515 Outdoor Recreation Grant from the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, which the city matched for a projected total cost of over $379,030 for the playground. Through the Master Parks Plan, the city has provided around $200,000 more for the new splashpad.
“With the playground getting updated, it makes sense to update the whole location at the same time,” Kapales said. “We started doing the Master Parks Plan and then we received a grant to be able to do a more in-depth portion, and we added [the splashpad] to it.”
“We’re trying to get to a point where all of our playgrounds in Jonesboro and even ones that we build moving forward are accessible. As a first-place city, our standards should be rubberized surfacing. It should be turf. It should be something that a child in a wheelchair would be able to freely go across without any barriers,” he continued. “We’re removing the barriers for all children and adults to be able to enjoy the playground together.”
Allen Park is located at 3609 Race St.