Renovations at Tracy Park now complete

After two years of planning and preparations, the Hill City Park and Recreation and Cemetery Board’s renovations at Tracy Park are finally complete. The new equipment is designed to make the park accessible and fun for toddlers on up. 

The park board was restarted by Ben Larsen and Stefanie Doaty, the current president, about two years ago after putting together a board. One of its first meetings involved making a priority list in which it asked, “What are we going to concentrate on? What do we want to do?” 

The park board also wanted to concentrate on cleaning up the existing parks and making them more user-friendly. Tracy Park and Memorial Park were at the top of the list along with a possible dog park and a skate park.

Since Memorial Park is such a big project, boad members decided to concentrate on Tracy Park to begin with. 

Once again the park board began by asking questions like, “What are we going to do? How are we going to improve it? How are we going to enhance it? What can we do to make it more family-friendly?”

In the end, the board decided their main goal was to make the park more accessible to toddlers and elementary-age children. 

“We just wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to play on the playground,” said Doaty. 

This required lots of meetings as well as work outside of meetings. Doaty and Larsen looked at the space, took measurements and brainstormed what could fit and what they wanted. After that, the park board spent a couple of meetings looking through playground catalogs to evaluate what equipment would work in the space and for the desired age group. 

Then Doaty and city administrator Brett McMacken measured the space one more time just to make sure everything would fit. With the final equipment selection and costs, McMacken asked the city council for its approval. 

Equipment was ordered in the fall of 2022, and like everything else there were some back-order delays. The Public Works Department built the equipment as it had time. Finally, once the snow thawed, the new equipment was installed at Tracy Park. The project was officially completed at the end of May. 

“We are so excited because now we have stuff down there for little kids, anywhere from age 2` to all the way up,” said Doaty. 

Now there are stepping pods going from one platform to another, a climbing dome to explore and a seesaw to ride. Another fun feature is the five-seater pedal-powered merry-go-round. There are new learning boards and a little xylophone as well. 

With the spring riders, the park board stayed true to the heart of Hill City with a motorcycle, fire truck and ambulance. Each spring rider holds two. 

A year and a half ago the Public Works Department also painted the existing structures so their colors would no longer be mismatched. These were painted green and yellow to represent Ranger colors. 

Along with the new equipment, pet stations can now be found at Tracy Park, the Visitor Information Center and Memorial Park. 

All the new equipment was paid for with park-board funding. 

With the renovations complete, Doaty said, “We love it. We absolutely love it.

“I see it benefiting the community by allowing families with younger children to be able to use the park more,” Doaty continued. 

The renovations also make the park more accessible to visitors who are looking for a place to pull over and enjoy. 

Although Tracy Park is finished for right now, the park board still has a few plans for the future. 

“There is always room for improvement,” said Doaty. 

In the meantime, Doaty added, “I just want to give a huge thank you to public works for doing a great job and staying on top of it. Without them we wouldn’t have been able to have the new equipment installed.”

Doaty added, “Thank you to the community for the support. We hope for the continued support especially now that we’re going to start getting Memorial Park going.” 

If anyone would like to attend a park board meeting to voice opinions, concerns or questions, they take place on the first and third Monday of every month at 6 p.m. at the Hill City Center.