Advisory board reviews four Green Acres playground concepts; staff to narrow to two for public vote

Davenport City parks staff on Wednesday presented four design concepts to the Park and Recreation Advisory Board for replacing the aging Green Acres playground and asked advisory members to help narrow the options to two for public review.

Billy, a parks staff presenter, laid out four concepts ranging from a themed, crocodile-shaped structure to a compact design with a zipline. "We have the opportunity to look at 4 different concepts for Greenacres for a new playground," he said, then summarized prices and trade-offs, adding, "This one is the most affordable option at $83,576," while noting a second option would cost "$84,999.83" and consume the budget.

The board and staff emphasized age-appropriate features and maintenance trade-offs. Staff said each concept includes play zones for ages 5–12 and, except for the smallest option, 2–5 features. Billy cautioned that the quotes include installation — typically about $22,000 — which uses roughly a quarter of the city’s $85,000 budget. He also said the smaller Concept 4’s zipline requires a larger fall zone and leaves less room for other play pieces.

Board members raised neighborhood concerns, including proximity to Truman School, limited on-site parking and observed use by older children. A board member asked whether equipment pieces could be swapped between concepts; Billy said exchanges are possible but would require vendor review because "each piece is so differently priced" and budgets are constrained.

On procurement, Billy said all four concepts came from the same preferred-vendor source and explained the city's use of cooperative purchasing: "Cooperative purchasing is a program where companies put in bids... and they have pre-negotiated prices for, say, installation and different play pieces," which allows the city to follow purchasing rules without running a separate bid for this small project.

Becca Niles, who outlined outreach, said staff will standardize colors on vendor renderings so comparisons focus on play elements rather than color preference and will ask the vendor to add benches to the concepts, responding to prior public feedback. "We're going to take those top two concepts out to the public," she said, describing plans to use a mailed/email survey to advisory members, a Ward 8 meeting (March 5) and targeted neighborhood tools such as Nextdoor and school dot-voting exercises; she said the winner will likely be announced in April.

There was no formal board vote on a preferred design at the meeting. Instead staff will email advisory members a rank-order survey, collect feedback, produce two color-neutral concept options for public preference exercises, and return with the public result at a subsequent meeting.