Kids Cove Park In Lakewood To Open June 3

LAKEWOOD, OH — The city's revamped Kids Cove Park opening has been delayed slightly. Originally slated to open over Memorial Day Weekend, the park is now scheduled to open on June 3 for the city's Meet the Trucks event.

Everything in the playground area at the park is brand new, Joe Beno, the city's director of public works, told Patch. The playground has also been expanded, there is new lighting around the park's paths, new landscaping, new equipment, a new backstop fence at the ball field, and many other improvements.

There will also be a new operator at the park's concession stand. Cornucopia, which operates Nature's Bin, is now running the stand. Beno said the concession stand should open the same day as the majority of the park.

(An earlier version of this story said the Meet the Trucks event is June 4. It is actually June 3.)

Beno said he would like to open a portion of the park to the public sooner than June 3, but there are several obstacles preventing him from doing so. Namely, there is still work going on around the park and at the playground, so contractors and children would both be present at the playground. That would likely create a logistics nightmare and require constant vigilance to maintain absolute safety.

Work on the Kids Cove project stared in the second week of October 2016, Beno said. Crews removed equipment and did a decent amount of other work until November or December. Playground equipment was then installed in January.

Nearly all of the playground equipment has now been installed, Beno said. There is one large, unusually shaped structure that will have to be craned into place in late June, after the rest of the park is open to the public. Beno said he would send a rendering of that final structure as soon as he has it.

Patch's Rick Uldricks snapped photographs from around the park and you can get a sneak peek at what the revamped Kids Cove has to offer above and below.

Photos from Rick Uldricks, Patch