Over the next several weeks chambanamoms.com will be doing occasional reviews of local parks. Got a park you want us to check out? Let us know! Or if you’re dying to tell everyone why you love your favorite local park, we welcome your contributions at editor@chambanamoms.com.
PARK NAME: Scott Park
LOCATION: Third Street and Springfield Avenue, Champaign
AMENITIES: Playground; basketball court; picnic area with grills.
GOOD FOR: Toddlers and up.
LAURA’S TAKE: This park probably isn’t in your rotation, but it’s worth a look. Completely gutted in the past couple of years in conjunction with the Boneyard Creek Project, this park sports some of the newest – and nicest – playground equipment in the Champaign Park District system. The park is also beautifully landscaped and there is plenty of shade.
This park has two sets of play equipment – one geared towards younger children (2-5) and the other for everyone else. It has unique features, including some spinning toys that I haven’t seen at many local parks. There is also a double teeter-totter, meaning there is room for two people on each side of it. There are two baby swings and two regular swings. My youngest loved the little playground, because it had a set of steering wheels that were low enough for her to reach (which isn’t the case at our neighborhood park and is the cause of much frustration).
One of the nice features of the park is the large picnic structure that is right next to the playground. There also is some grass area and a path through the park that includes a beautiful bridge over the Boneyard.
This is an urban park. If your kid is a runner, this may not be the park for you, as Springfield is a busy street. But there is a partial fence around the playground to keep kids contained. There is also a lot of activity at the basketball court which seems to be a popular place for pick-up games, so it might not be available for the kids.
As is the case with many Champaign parks, there are no bathrooms there. When my daughter had to go, we were rescued by the County Market grocery store across the street. However, that is a bonus; go over there and get yourself some coffee at the Caribou Coffee (or the beverage of your choice) and pick up the kids a snack for an impromptu picnic.
A couple of cons to the park: because this park is surrounded by University of Illinois student housing, there may be empty beer and liquor bottles lying around, but the ones we saw were near the street. Also, there’s only metered parking available, but we did not see anyone checking them in the nearly 1.5 hours we were there.