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Benefits of Customized Playground Equipment for Your Park

While standard playground designs offer many benefits to your park or recreation center, customized play areas provide even more value to your space. By configuring the design to your specific community’s needs, you can create a safe and inclusive outdoor play experience for all children to enjoy. As a bonus, the benefits and impact of playgrounds for communities go further than helping kids grow — a well-designed play space can have far-reaching advantages for your local area.

1. Maximize Park Use and Visitation

A well-maintained, diverse playground plays an important role in attracting visitors to your park or recreation center. If you build a playground with generic features that don’t accommodate or appeal to as many children as possible, you may see a decrease in park-goers. At the same time, you want to make the most out of your available playground space.

Here are some aspects to consider when customizing your design for maximum enjoyment:

  • Demographics: Choosing age-appropriate equipment allows you to capture the attention of all kids and challenge them in ways that make sense for their ages. Identifying whether your visitors fall into the category of early childhood, school age or both helps you choose relevant equipment that keeps them engaged.
  • Unique preferences: Including a variety of playground equipment helps keep things exciting. Aim to include various equipment types at different challenge levels to encourage participation and help meet more kids’ needs.
  • Available space: Whether you have a wide open area or a smaller patch of land to build your playground, customized designs help you get the most value from your space. This approach allows you to fit exactly the right amount of equipment into the area, so you don’t waste an inch of potential play space.

Custom playground projects are highly versatile, allowing you to choose the exact equipment and objects that make up the space.

2. Create a More Inclusive Space

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires all playgrounds in the United States to ensure equal access for all abilities. Features of ADA-compliant playgrounds include the following:

  • Accessible pathways from the building or parking lot to the playground boundary.
  • Accessible pathways to access playground equipment.
  • Adequate surfacing that complies with ASTM 1951 standards.

While it’s legally required to ensure your playground is ADA-compliant, inclusive playgrounds go beyond meeting ADA requirements. A truly inclusive space provides every ADA component and more, allowing each child, no matter their abilities, to have a fun learning experience on the playground.

With custom playground equipment, you can carefully select structures and objects that are accessible to each child, effectively building a memorable space for your community. When you take the time to meet and exceed families’ expectations, you can expect them to return to your play space time and time again.

3. Boost Property Values and Community Pride

A playground built with standard equipment can still provide a great play experience, but it’s custom equipment that goes above and beyond to create sensational play spaces. By investing in a carefully designed and crafted community and neighborhood play area, the surrounding area can experience some notable benefits.

  • Enhanced property values: Real estate located near communal playgrounds sells for an estimated 8% to 20% more. Adding custom structures to your playground design will only enhance property appeal.
  • Positive economic impact: Exciting playground structures entice people from far and wide to use the equipment. As a result, you attract more visitors to your recreation center, which can positively impact surrounding local businesses. Installing inclusive play structures that serve all age groups and abilities also helps to ensure maximum returns.
  • Improved community value: Offering a safe place for children and adults to experience nature builds stronger, more mindful communities.

  • Increased health and wellness: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity affects 19.7% of children and adolescents as of 2020. Play areas provide children with more opportunities to exercise and maintain a healthy weight, especially when they contain custom equipment meant to promote physical activity.

Customized outdoor playgrounds and spaces serve one purpose — to benefit the community. Inviting neighbors to share their i odeas on the playground’s layout and equipment helps to ensure optimal satisfaction. By holding a community meeting or creating an online feedback form, you encourage innovative ideas that will serve local residents.

4. Support Childrens’ Well-Being

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry indicates that children under the age of 12 spend approximately four to six hours engaged with technology each day. While there are benefits of using computers, smartphones and other tech devices, nothing can replace the perks of outdoor play for a child’s development.

If you prioritize custom playground equipment that encourages fun and learning, you can give kids a space that reinvigorates their love for getting outside. Adding interactive cubesclimbing tunnels, thrilling zip lines and inclusive play equipment gives children more reason to visit and experience the many benefits of outdoor play.

When you leverage playground themes and elements, you create an imaginative world that inspires creativity. For example, modeling your playground after a train stationpirate ship or space station helps to set the stage for fantasy play. Implementing beneficial fantasy play opportunities helps children develop their problem-solving abilities, communication skills and independence. These skills are vital learning areas and are helpful in both personal and professional contexts as they grow older.

Whether you choose to customize your playground based on one specific theme or incorporate various elements for a multi-thematic experience, children will delight in your custom play setup.

Elevate Play Through Customization With Playworld

Custom playgrounds add value to communities on a social, economic and educational level. They also allow you to gain maximum value from your space, providing a rewarding experience for kids of all ages and abilities.

If the time has come for you to upgrade the playground in your park or recreation center, consider the endless options available to you through custom designs. Leveraging custom playground equipment and suppliers like Playworld helps you realize your playground goals and create a more inclusive environment for children.

From integrating inclusive swing sets to accessible climbers, Playworld is dedicated to helping you create a design for everyone to enjoy. We believe that everyone in your community should have access to a fun learning experience through play, and our range of high-quality playground products reflects that mission.

Explore our innovative playground equipment to inspire your playground planning and vision, and get in touch with our team for personalized solutions. We’re excited to help you create inclusive and inventive play opportunities for all!

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