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History of Penny Park
Community participation is what continues
to keep the park strong and growing:
A small group of volunteers founded GIFTTT in January 1998, and began publicizing the project, organizing the community and raising funds. The culmination of this effort was construction of the park’s first phase, the Penny Playground, at 1305 Grant Street, in April, 1999. Thousands of people—children and senior citizens, jail detainees and bank presidents--volunteered their labor to build the facilities, designed by Robert Leathers and Associates, an Ithaca, NY firm specializing in community built projects.
The project began with polling of local school children to gather ideas of what types of equipment and features they would like to see in their “ultimate playground.” The resulting 15,000 square-foot playground is filled with a variety of imaginative climbing structures, slides, swings, bridges, balance beams, castle structures and picnic grounds, shaded by mature cottonwood and elm trees.
In the fall of 1999, volunteers gathered again to construct a number of above-ground ramps and half-pipe structures which were placed on property leased to the Town of Silver City for a temporary skate park. This temporary facility has been used for many years while gathering funds for the construction of a 20,000 square foot in-ground extreme sports park. This process has taken longer than anyone could have imagined, as volunteer labor is not an option for such a technical build.
In April 2000, hundreds of volunteers again converged on the park to build a 310-seat amphitheater/dance floor. The amphitheater structure also shelters our maintenance shop and concession stand. Three additional parcels of land were added to the park in this year also. It is anticipated that the park could continue to grow over the next several decades, possibly linking with other town park or green space areas through a series of trails or pedestrian bridges.
Volunteers came together again in June, 2001, to construct one large and three small roofed picnic pavilions. In Fall, 2001, skate park volunteers expanded the half-pipe and completed a pyramid box structure at the temporary skate park site.
A bouldering wall was built at the park in 2002. Volunteers from the community created the design and built the structure, which is proving extremely popular with young children and teens. Brick flooring for the picnic pavilions was also added that year.
In 2004 we completed our permanent restroom facility, which replaced rows of porta-potties that had been rented for several years. Also in 2004, a downtown Silver City toy store, Toy Town, was donated to the non-profit corporation. The store had been closed for some months following the death of former owner Janet Hammel, one of Penny Park’s founders. The store re-opened Memorial Day weekend, 2004. As we pay off our initial investment in reopening the business, we expect Toy Town to serve as a source of earned income for future park operations and maintenance
In the spring of 2006 we are working on completing our electrical system in the amphitheater to facilitate performances in our Summer Music Program. We are also moving forward with engineering plans for our permanent extreme sports park, we have funding for at least the first concrete phase, and are hopeful about going to bid this year.
To date, construction cost for the playgrounds, amphitheater, temporary skate park, picnic pavilions, climbing wall, landscaping, fencing, restrooms and other amenities is approximately $450,000. The existing facility is valued at well over one million dollars. Donation of volunteer labor, materials and in-kind services is what kept the price of this facility relatively low. Community participation is what continues to keep the park strong and growing.
The Community Built Park is a continuing source of pride in this community and has helped spawn similar (but less elaborate) projects in Carlsbad, Las Cruces, and Ruidoso, NM.
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