By 1808Delaware
Children are once again climbing, swinging, and exploring at Millstone Creek Park.
Parts of the newly refurbished playground are now open to the public following several months of construction. Additional features, including the park’s new natural play area, are expected to open later in August as crews complete the final portions of the project.
The playground closed in February as the City of Westerville began replacing and reimagining a community space that had served families for approximately 15 years. The former playground was well loved, but its equipment had reached the end of the city’s standard replacement cycle. Removing it also created an opportunity to reconsider how Westerville’s first universally accessible playground could serve children, caregivers, and families for the next generation.
More Than an Equipment Upgrade
Playground design has changed considerably since the previous Millstone Creek equipment was installed. Research into childhood development now places greater emphasis on creative environments where children can invent games, navigate spaces in different ways, and adapt their play depending on who joins them.
The new Millstone Creek playground reflects that approach. Rather than relying entirely on traditional equipment, the park combines climbing structures, landscaped mounds, sensory elements, natural materials, quiet spaces, and imaginative routes. The design also addresses several limitations of the previous playground, including limited access points, insufficient shade, restricted sightlines, and a shortage of calm areas for children who need a break from activity.
Built for Different Ways to Play
The redesigned playground includes a slide, net-climbing features, swings, and sculpted mounds that serve as ramps leading to the equipment. A wheelchair-accessible buddy swing allows children to swing alongside a friend or family member, while a chime forest adds sound and musical exploration to the park. The playground also includes an imaginative play route, improved seating and furniture, and a bonded rubber surface designed to make movement through the area easier and safer.
Accessibility features have been incorporated into the landscape itself. Where the former playground relied on a visible network of posts and ramps, the new design uses sloping mounds to create accessible routes that feel like a natural part of the play environment. Those mounds also improve visibility across the playground, allowing caregivers to more easily follow children as they move between activities.
Bringing Nature Into the Playground
One of the project’s most distinctive additions is the natural play area, which is expected to open later in August.
Nature play gives children opportunities to explore environments that resemble the landscapes they might encounter along a stream, in a woodland, or across an open field. Instead of directing children toward one prescribed activity, the space encourages them to decide how objects and surroundings will become part of their play.
At Millstone Creek, children will be able to interact with the stream and nearby landscape, navigate log and rock scrambles, and test their balance on natural steppers. The area will also include a quiet location for reflection and calming, recognizing that an inclusive playground must provide places to pause as well as places to move. A new overlook and replacement creekside deck will give visitors additional ways to experience the water and surrounding habitat. The existing wooden bridge is also being replaced as part of the project.
A Garden Designed for Touch, Scent, and Taste
Plants were already an important part of the original Millstone Creek playground, with native and wild plantings located around its perimeter. The new design brings those natural elements into the center of the experience.
An edible sensory planter garden will feature herbs and fruits that visitors can touch, smell, and, when appropriate, taste. Children will be able to crush leaves to release their scent, observe plants as they grow, and watch the garden change throughout the seasons. Drip irrigation equipment will help maintain the new planters.
The garden is intended to support curiosity and informal learning without turning the playground into a classroom. Children can discover textures, scents, colors, and seasonal changes simply by moving through the space.
A Place for Families to Explore Together
The city designed the new Millstone Creek playground around the idea that inclusive play extends beyond children using equipment independently. The park is intended to give people of different ages and abilities opportunities to play and explore together. Parents, grandparents, siblings, caregivers, and friends can move through the space alongside children rather than remaining outside the play area. Community feedback helped shape the project, including its improved accessibility, clearer sightlines, quiet spaces, and variety of play experiences.
The completed playground will combine familiar activities such as slides and swings with music, gardening, climbing, nature exploration, and imaginative play.
For now, families can begin enjoying the sections that have opened while crews complete the natural play area and other remaining features.
The construction dust has not entirely disappeared, but a new chapter of play has already begun at Millstone Creek Park.
Source, Image: City of Westerville
