Fairhope’s splash pad is on track to reopen later this month after a construction setback forced the city to tear out and rebuild the water feature less than a year after it first opened.
The splash pad debuted last August at the recently renovated community park downtown, but problems with the original concrete pad forced officials to demolish it and start over. In April, the City Council approved a roughly $95,700 contract with a Pelham-based firm to handle the rebuild.
City officials say the new splash pad is expected to open around July 22. According to Fairhope’s director of community affairs and recreation, the project has fallen slightly behind schedule due to rain delays that made it difficult to pour concrete on time, but work is otherwise going smoothly.
The splash pad and an adjoining pavilion sit on the south end of the roughly two-acre park at the corner of Church Street and Morphy Avenue. The refreshed design, created by outside consultants, will carry a pirate theme to match the park’s existing playground equipment, replacing the original pad’s more generic features with water cannons, geysers and dumping buckets. Officials say the new version also addresses drainage issues that plagued the first installation, which left standing water and mud puddles after use.
Meanwhile, on the south side of the city, crews are moving ahead on a separate and larger recreation project: a $3.5 million, nine-field soccer complex near Manley Road and Baldwin County 13. Work on that site began in June, with two of the nine fields planned as championship-sized venues. The complex, which will also include expanded parking, is expected to be completed by spring 2016.
Together, the two projects represent a significant investment in family recreation amenities for the fast-growing Baldwin County city, as Fairhope continues to expand park offerings to keep pace with population growth along the Eastern Shore.
City officials say they will announce a formal reopening date for the splash pad once final testing of the equipment is complete.