Time to play: Zadie E. Kuehl Memorial Park enjoys makeover in Lakeland
Michael Waddell
Daily Memphian
Lakeland Commissioner and Parks and Recreation committee member Michele Dial squealed with delight Tuesday night as she slid down one of the slides at Lakeland’s newly refurbished Zadie E. Kuehl Memorial Park.
The committee, which normally meets at City Hall, gathered at the park for its monthly session, providing the chance to check out the recently completed playground makeover and the soon-to-be-completed adjacent dog park.
“This was an underutilized park, and it’s the only park in Lakeland on the south side of the Interstate 40, so the residents in the surrounding neighborhoods really need it,” Dial said.
The park was named for 6-month-old Zadie Elese Kuehl, who was killed along with her mother, Stefanie Kuehl (daughter of former WMC-TV chief meteorologist Dave Brown), and her unborn sibling, Thomas, by a drunken driver on May 31, 1997, at the intersection of U.S. 64 and Canada Road. Zadie’s organs were donated to help four children and an adult.
Dial invited the Brown and Kuehl families to committee meetings during the planning process to re-imagine the park, which began in 2018.
“They were very excited about improving this area and making it more useful for the community,” she said. “It’s really a needed improvement.”
The previous play structure at the 3-acre park on Yukon Drive in the Canada Woods subdivision had become dilapidated in recent years.
“Now, it really is something that can provide some entertainment and some play for almost any age,” said Lakeland Parks and Recreation director Patrick O’Mara. “This and the new dog park. We have some smaller elements for younger kids and some more challenging ones as they grow older.”
The new playground area includes a synthetic grass surface designed to lessen the impact of falls.
“Our surfacing is the newest standard in fall safety,” O’Mara said.
“Swing with me” swings allow a parent or older child to ride on the opposite side from a smaller child, and cell phone “selfie pockets” are found in multiple places around the park, including the swings and merry-go-round.
“We tried to keep as many of the secondary amenities as possible,” said O’Mara, referring to a small child’s table next to the playground that was salvaged from the previous park layout.
The park improvements came in just under the budgeted $200,000, all coming from a Community Development Block Grant from the Randy Boyd Foundation as part of the “Dog Park Dash” initiative.
“We narrowed the different designs down to something that the community could use and, of course, support those with mobility difficulties,” said O’Mara.
A wheelchair can roll all the way to the base of one of the main towers, enabling the participant to play with the activities built into the structure. There are some sections only accessible from ground level, like a “speak-to-me” pipe where you whisper into one side and the person on the other side can hear you.
“Being able to provide equipment that is inclusive for special needs children is dear to my heart,” said Dial, a 32-year educator. “This type of facility is needed for those children who are otherwise not able to play on equipment like this.”
The dog park, the first in the city, will be completed soon. The area will include sections for large and small breeds, and agility stations could be added at a later date.
Work from project general contractor A+B Construction is underway this week on new light stations for a parking lot that will also feature an illuminated walking path to the park.
Grinder, Taber, & Grinder is the general contractor for the dog park aspect.
“That work is being done without destroying any of the natural beauty that’s a barrier between the park and The Pet Hospital. They contributed the land (roughly 4 acres) for the driveway,” explained Dial, Board of Commissioners (BOC) liaison to the volunteer Parks and Recreation Board committee.
The park had been the site of some nefarious activity in recent years, including suspected drug use and vandalism.
“We feel that opening it up, lighting it, and giving it a purpose – making it a destination – will curb some of that,” said Dial. “No one is going to want to come out here and do those things if someone might happen upon them.”
The parks commission plans similar playground improvements next year at the 15-acre Oak Ridge Park on the north end of the Heron’s Ridge development on Seed Tick Road. The project will likely go before the BOC for funding approval later this month.
