LAUREL — The new splash park in Laurel was originally estimated to be open at the beginning of the summer, taking over the city pool that closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened.
The anticipated opening date came and went, with the pool only being half-filled with gravel and no splash park in sight.
“We may have a couple of weeks after school starts that it could be active, but it's not going to be up and fully operational probably until next summer,” said Ryan Welsh, project engineer with KLJ Engineering in Laurel, which was contracted by the city for the project.
The city has already purchased all of the equipment needed to build the park and has raised around $264,000 in private donations of the $300,000 goal.
“We thought we were still going to have to be fundraising once it was built, and it’ll be really nice that it’s going to be paid for before it’s finished,” said Cami Nelson, the executive director of the Laurel Chamber of Commerce.
The main thing stopping Laurel residents from getting to enjoy a new splash park is a delay with the contractors.
“They found a contractor that originally said they could get in around the middle to the end of May of this year, but due to unknown circumstances they had to revise their schedule to the middle of August,” Welsh said.
Welsch said the city hired a design company for the project. The design company, Utah-based Play Space Designs, found a contractor in the city's budget to build the project. That contractor, along with this summer's large rainfall, are the reasons the splash park has been delayed.
“Due to all the rain we had, we had an exponential amount of rain, and we had a window of opportunity to get the splash park done with the contractors at that time which was the end of May, beginning of June,” said Amy Mullaney, the Laurel community foundation treasurer.
Welsch and Mullaney did not provide a name for the contractor, but Mullaney said they have tried to switch to another one.
“We’ve reached out to a couple of other contractors to see if we can get it done sooner but it’s looking as though we can’t get it done any sooner,” Mullaney said.
