Nixa’s McCauley Park playground equipment removed for new park; some upset over handling

NIXA, Mo. (KY3) - There was a weekend surprise for visitors to McCauley Park in Nixa. The playground had been torn out of the ground and piled by the road to make room for a new inclusive playground.

Cassidy Mitchell lives near McCauley Park. He posted a video on a Nixa Neighborhood Facebook page to show all the old equipment.

”It was all just kind of trashed on the side of the curb there,” he says. “It was just all piled up. I was just not expecting to see it.”

Mitchell also didn’t expect the response he got. More than 100 people commented on the video he posted to the page, and many were upset.

Facebook users wondered why the equipment was ruined and not donated.

”I just think people have a lot of opinions about what’s going on. There was a vote recently to expand parks and things like that. And I thought people would find it informative.”

The park is being turned into an inclusive playground. It will feature a motion sensor and pour-in-place surfacing and offers various types and forms of play at a variety of graduated levels and challenges.

Matt Crouse with the Parks Board in Nixa says the city did try to find a new home for the playground, but there was just one big problem: it’s old.

That being said, the city did find a place to donate the swing area, though that too, may not work.

”We got it out of the group, but it has so much concrete around the base to hold it in place that now we are going to have to try to bust that concrete out and try to reuse that, Crouse says. “I don’t know that it will work.

Crouse says that they will not just be throwing away the old equipment. Everything except for the concrete bases can be recycled.

Weather permitting, the new park should be ready to go in just a few weeks.

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