Father Tucker Park, a landmark of Wilmington’s Little Italy neighborhood, reopened last week with new age-specific play equipment, picnic areas and an interactive splash park.
Christian Willauer, former director of Cornerstone West CDC, which spearheaded the $613,000revamp, lives near the park.
“This weekend, every day of the weekend, there were 25 or 30 people there,” she said.
The refurbishment of the 20,000 square-foot park is part of West Side Grows Together’s Community Playground Design Project, which started in 2013.
Christina Fabris went to the neighboring St. Anthony’s school as a child and grew up playing at Fr. Tucker Park. She's now a parent in the neighborhood, and was one of the first advocates for the renovation.
“We were hoping by having amazing equipment, we could have other kids come from other neighborhoods as well, so our neighborhood would be a destination instead of us always having to go to other places,” she said.
Cornerstone West’s current director, Sarah Lester, says the renovation was a group effort—involving a community field trip to a park in Philadelphia to see what types of equipment neighborhood kids might want.
“So many members of the community were involved with the design and the implementation and they have continued to monitor even the construction progress,” she said. “There are a lot of eyes on the parks and I think that that stewardship is going to remain.”
Lester says over a hundred people gave feedback on the designs for the park renovation designs, which were prepared by Locus Partners.
"Seeing the change in these spaces has really reinforced my faith that neighborhoods are stronger when we have quality places for people to be outside."
Fourth St. Park and Connell St. Park were also refurbished through the project, which leveraged $1.4 million in local, municipal, state and federal funding.
Willauer says she’s seen a change in the areas surrounding the 4th St. and Connell St. parks, which were finished being renovated last year.
“It’s like night and day. The places go from being basically kind of abandoned to being places families go."
And she says the transformation is not just physical.
“Seeing the change in these spaces has really reinforced my faith that neighborhoods are stronger when we have quality places for people to be outside. It’s not just about health, not just exercise,” she said. “But it creates this sense of community.”
Cornerstone West plans to continue the Community Playground Design Project with the renovation of Cool Springs and Tilton parks next.
Funding for the renovations of the first three parks came from Wilmington’s 5th and 7th district Neighborhood Planning Councils, the City of Wilmington, the State Legislature, the Longwood Foundation, DNREC, Nemours and the Centers for Disease Control, the Neighborhood Building Blocks Fund, and the National Parks Service.
