New Town Green Playground designed to have something for everyone

A new playground is coming this spring to The Town Green at Peachtree Corners Town Center, and it aims to be one of the most unique in the country, District 3 City Councilor Alex Wright said. The new playground will dwarf the current Town Green playground and it should have no problem keeping kids occupied, he added.

“It’s pretty large, especially in contrast to the little one we got there now,” Wright said. “This is going to be a major upgrade to the area as far as kid activities and I think there will be some adults that get on this stuff because some of it is kind of neat.

“There [are] always kids at the Town Green already, but I think this is going to give a whole new level of attraction. What we see now is kids get to a certain age and they don’t want to play on the playground we got now because there’s really not much stuff there, and they end up migrating over to the woods, which there’s nothing wrong with that, but we thought, ‘Let’s give them something more than what we’ve got now.’”

The centerpiece of the new playground will be a Quantis, a netplay structure shaped in a figure-eight that functions like an ascending obstacle course. The Quantis has been built for net climbers but has a myriad of functions and includes a bridge, a cargo net with steps and molecular-style belting. Kids can also use seats underneath the structure as a hangout space.

The structure may be one of just a few in the country, Wright said.

“It’s a very unique piece of equipment I think even adults will be attracted to,” Wright said.

The playground will also have a state-of-the-art slide, a bamboo jungle, and a wall where kids can sit. Wright said it’s been designed with parents in mind as well.

“We wanted an area where the parents could hang out and watch their kids play,” he said. “The big hit was having a covered area right beside the play area.”

The surface of the new playground will be made of rubber material called PebbleFlex rather than AstroTurf like the current one and will represent the city’s colors of blue and green, Wright said.

The playground’s designer, Dustin Graham of Atlanta-based Playground Creations, turned out to be a perfect match in what the city was looking for, Wright said, because the city wanted something that could accommodate children with special needs.

“When we were brainstorming with him about what we were looking for, we found out this guy had a background in not just landscape design but a passion on the side for helping special needs kids,” Wright said. “When he gave us the original design, one of the things he had done without asking us was incorporate some equipment and other design features that would be very attractive to people with special needs kids.”

Graham grew up near Peachtree Corners and is excited that his friends and neighbors will have something to encourage them to get out and be active.

“We went through several revisions of the playground plan,” he said. “I think this one is the seventh and it has all the changes for the site design in place.”

Aaron Humphrey, an engineer with Duluth-based Keck and Wood agreed that there’s already buzz in the air.

“We worked well together with the designer and the city and I’m sure the playground will be well received,” he said.

The contract for constructing the new playground went up for bid recently, and if all goes according to plan, it will be open for play in May, Wright said.

Updated 1/23/22