New playground opens at South Shore Park: 'It feels fresh'

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- One of Milwaukee's signature settings now has a new look. Milwaukee County officials on Friday unveiled a new playground at South Shore Park.

Milwaukee County Parks Director Guy Smith said the old playground was among the most outdated in the system. Having opened in 1996, the playground has a surface that was coming apart and rusty equipment.

Smith said the new playing surface was a priority for the parks system given the overall popularity of South Shore Park.

"It's really significant because it's one of our signature playgrounds," Smith said.

The cost of rebuilding the playground was nearly $600,000. Nearly all of it came from the county as part of the 2022 budget, but Friends of South Shore Park raised $16,000 for additional benches and trees.

"It wasn't just about being outdated," Melissa Benson, one of the group's volunteers, said. "The surface of the playground was falling apart."

Benson said the group's biggest contribution went beyond the seed money is raised. She said the volunteers' most vital work was rallying people to call county board supervisors in an effort to secure funding for a new playground.

"Really, it was about getting the community involved," Benson said. "Getting them to call their officials, getting them to call on different meetings they were having about the budget to make sure it was prioritized."

An aide for State Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), who was the area's county board supervisor when the funding was secured, said at the ribbon cutting the funding was initially reserved for the sheriff's office to have a new parking lot built. 

The aide, on behalf of Clancy, claimed the money movement was an example of "defunding the police."

Smith said McGovern Park's playground is the next among the system's 112 playgrounds to be rebuilt. He noted construction of the new South Shore playground lasted just a little over a month, having started in early June.

"That is called teamwork, my friend," he said.

Claire Smith and her daughter were one of the many families who flocked over to see the new playground. Smith said she'd moved to the Bay View neighborhood in 2020, and after having a daughter, first noticed the playground had fallen into disrepair.

"The swings were rusty, and there were things it felt like maybe [my daughter] could fall off," she said. "The bridge over here wasn't very safe."

The playground reconstruction is just part of a larger project at South Shore Park. The nearby breakwater is being rebuilt in a multi-million-dollar project, and the beach is also in the process of being relocated further down the shore.

Smith said work on the beach was coming along nicely and added he expects it to reopen in a matter of weeks.

Against a backdrop of the Milwaukee skyline, and on Friday, Blue Angels practice runs, one of the city's most popular gathering places now has a new look.

"It feels fresh. It feels exciting and safe, and we're just- I can't believe this is around the corner from us," Claire Smith said. "As a parent to a toddler, it's pretty much the best thing you could ask for."