IMPROVEMENTS COMING — The Weirton Board of Parks and Recreation is seeking bids for a planned improvement project to the Bennett Drive Playground. -- Craig Howell

WEIRTON — The Weirton Board of Parks and Recreation is seeking bids as part of plans for improvements to one of the city’s playgrounds.

According to a legal advertisement published March 18, the board is accepting sealed proposals to “provide recreational equipment and park improvements,” for the Bennett Drive Playground.

“We’re hoping to get four bidders,” explained Parks Executive Director Coty Shingle during Thursday’s Park Board meeting. “We need at least three.”

Bids will be accepted until 1 p.m. April 7 with an opening scheduled for 1:15 p.m. the same day.

Working with representatives of Urban Design Ventures, Weirton parks officials began discussion of potential improvements at the playground last fall.

Located at the intersection of Bennett Drive and St. Ann Way in the Weircrest area of the city, the playground features a small shelter with one picnic table, a swing set with two regular swings and two infant swings, a basketball court, and a few benches.

Board member Ronnie Jones noted a water fountain had been installed at the playground several years ago, but currently is inoperable and often is the target of vandalism.

Jones also indicated some of the playground equipment was brought there from other sites.

“The playgrounds has really never gotten anything,” Shingle said, adding there, most likely, still wouldn’t be an opportunity for improvements to the site if it had not become eligible for funding under the Community Development Block Grant program.

The CDBG funds, administered through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, are allocated to target projects in low- and moderate-income areas of a community. The playground project will use funds which previously had been allocated to other projects but went unspent, according to city officials.

Shingle has explained surveys show the Bennett Drive area is among the fastest growth areas in the city for populations of youth between the ages of 5 and 12 years old.

The Weirton Park Board oversees the operation and maintenance of 12 parks and playgrounds throughout the city, as well as the Millsop Community Center, the Edwin J. Bowman Baseball Field and the Panhandle Recreational Trail.