ORANGE — Selectmen voted on Wednesday to sign on a New Jersey company to replace the aging equipment at Butterfield Park.
The town elected to go with the Marturano Recreation Company and Kevin Kennedy, the director of community development planning in Orange, said the company was unanimously recommended by the Butterfield Playground Committee. He said MRC’s proposal is just under $60,000, though he does not know when the work will begin.
Kennedy said most of the existing equipment is unsafe and cannot be adapted to newer equipment. He said support pieces made today are designed differently than all other pieces manufactured in the 1970s and ‘80s. The largest play structure in the playground near the intersection of Hayden and King streets is estimated to have been installed in the late 1980s.
Ryan Mailloux, chairman of the Orange Board of Selectmen, said he was “super impressed and thrilled with the work the committee put in.”
Kennedy said proposals also came in from M.E. O’Brien & Sons Inc., of Medfield, and the Miracle Recreation Equipment Company, of Missouri.
All members of the Butterfield Playground Committee met in April with Cindy Maak, owner of Site Specifics, a company that installs playground equipment, who said she is also the exclusive Miracle Recreation dealer for western Massachusetts. She offered Orange a 40-percent discount for going through her company.
Residents voted in December 2016 to transfer $71,500 from free cash for constructing or reconstructing playgrounds, effectively accepting a $50,000 state grant to replace equipment at Butterfield Park. The money is from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’ Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities grant program. Kennedy previously said the project could start no sooner than July 1, 2017, and must be completed by June 1, 2018.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 258. On Twitter: @DomenicPoli