VILONIA — The Vilonia playground that replaced the one destroyed by the April 2014 tornado is “absolutely awesome; there’s no other way to describe it,” Mayor James Firestone said.
It was a project of KaBoom! — a national nonprofit organization that selected Kimberly-Clark in Conway as the funding and work partner.
The old playground in City Park on Cemetery Street was built about 15 years ago and cost about $2,000, he said. “It was nice,” he said. “This one cost $200,000.”
Kira Livingston, a member of the support staff for Vilonia City Hall, said she thinks it was more than $200,000, although Kimberly-Clark keeps mum on the cost, she said.
“We had some side projects that weren’t included: normal park benches and planter benches, a shade structure, bulletin board and bike rack,” she said. “They weren’t considered as part of the playground.” Kimberly-Clark also paid for those items.
“We were out absolutely nothing,” Firestone said.
Children in the community had input on the playground layout and what they’d like to see in a February design event. About 125 volunteers attended the playground build April 18, Livingston said, “which was less than what we expected.”
The “upside to it,” Livingston said, is that KaBoom! officials said Vilonia got the playground done ahead of schedule and with fewer volunteers than most of the organization’s “builds.”
Firestone said the sports fields are coming back to life after the tornado blew through the city April 27, 2014, killing eight people, destroying homes and businesses, and snapping trees. In addition to the park, 12 homes on Cemetery Street alone were destroyed, Firestone said.
The mayor said Vilonia is lucky the tornado occurred on a Sunday night.
“If it had been on a Monday instead of a Sunday, that ballpark would have been full of people,” he said. With only one access, Firestone said, “there’s no way they could have got out.”
Firestone said the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave approval less than two weeks ago to rebuild the five-field baseball complex next to the playground. He got the call at 4:50 p.m., and by 5 p.m., he’d called the city engineer, he said.
“We didn’t have enough insurance money, so it’s taken all this time to get the OK from FEMA to proceed,” he said. FEMA will provide $902,000, and $225,000 was received from insurance.
“Hopefully, it’ll be ready to go out to bid in a month,” Firestone said, and it will take another month to get bids in and approve one. “The good thing is, it’s going to put us in prime time to build.”
The complex will have a memorial of some kind to Cameron Smith, 9, who played on one of the baseball teams and was killed in the storm, along with his 7-year-old brother, Tyler.
Firestone said the Vilonia Soccer Association has earmarked some donations for a memorial to Cameron and the storm victims.
“When we get the park built back, that’s something that will be done,” he said.
A $1.5 million softball and soccer complex being built on 17 acres on North Mount Olive includes four softball fields and seven soccer fields.
“We’re waiting on dry weather to install lights. The parking lot is getting ready to be paved. Then dugouts will be built and the concessions stands,” the mayor said.
The project was paid for with revenue from a half-cent sales tax for park and recreational improvements and was already planned before last year’s tornado struck.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.