Gahanna Opens New Ashburnham Park Playground, Twice the Size

Kids in the Villages of Gahanna have their neighborhood swings and slides back. The City of Gahanna said Wednesday morning, October 28, that the replacement playground at Ashburnham Park is finished and open, in a city post that puts the cost at roughly $237,000. The new play area covers about double the footprint of the one it replaced.

The park sits at 1245 Ashburnham Drive, per its facility listing, tucked among the streets off Brookhill Drive and Greenbank Road. Crews fenced off the old equipment starting Monday, September 28, and the city's September notice had set the end of October as the target, weather permitting. The job finished on that schedule.

Gahanna did not pick the pieces on its own. Earlier this year Parks and Recreation mailed postcards to 304 homes around the park asking what families wanted, then weighed the answers against National Recreation and Park Association guidance. Midstates Recreation drew up the design. The result mixes the usual slides and climbers with harder challenges meant for older kids, and the colors were chosen to blend with the trees and lawn that ring the site.

The city has not published a ribbon cutting, a list of individual pieces or an accessibility breakdown for the new surface, and the post includes no hours beyond normal park use. Questions about the project went to Zac Guthrie, the department's park operations manager, while work was under way.

For families in the surrounding subdivisions, the neighborhood play space is back before the cold sets in. Other suburbs are on the same track: Worthington just finished its Wilson Hill Park play area and Upper Arlington is close to final plans for Fancyburg Park. Find food and coffee near the park on our Gahanna page, pick an after-school league from our youth sports programs list, and follow more park news in City.