502 Wall Avenue Ogden, UT 84404
The 4th street softball park playground is a small circular shaped playground between two softball fields in Ogden with rubber surfacing. It has a fun track and field themed motif with a slide, circular cup shaped seat spinner, globe spinner that can be used by more than one child at a time and a half ball to climb on. There are also restrooms available next to the playground. There is plenty of parking in the nearby lot on Wall Ave.
I assume that most of the use of this park is when softball teams are playing on the nearby fields. The park is out of the way on Wall Avenue, but can be accessed also on 4th street where there are some residential houses.
I took my 3 year old here to play at the park and I thought he wouldn't be very interested in it. Surprisingly, he loved the playground, especially the slide and the squares with runners on them where he made up jumping games to amuse himself. He even asked to come back.
There are a few things I like about this playground. I love the rubber surfacing! This surfacing is especially nice for younger toddlers that eat or throw the mulch and sand. It is also great for kids with mobility issues and eliminates many of the trip hazards at other playgrounds. I also like that there are only two small entrances to the playground and the rest is fenced in. This is very handy for keeping track of multiple kids or kids that like to run off.
The track and field themed surfacing is cute, but the racing lines aren't very useful. All the playground elements including the spinners and slide are in the middle of the lanes, so you couldn't actually use the lines to race on. I'm sure they are supposed to be, but it did make me laugh.
There were also a couple things I didn't love about this park. When we visited the park in March it was littered with glass from broken bottles and some garbage. There was also some markings on the slide where little kids wrote on it with permanent markers. Most likely the parks department hadn't gotten to cleaning it yet, especially since it isn't softball season.
My main objection to this if there were softball games happening at the time is the placement of the playground. In the below picture you can see that the fence next to it states it is a foul ball zone. It does have a higher fence, but no nets above the fence or above the playground. Kids aren't the best at keeping an eye on balls, especially when playing on a playground.
Pros:
- rubber surfacing
- spinning/twirling elements
- near both softball fields for parents to watch while they play games
- big slide with safety rails at the top
- handicap accessible
- restrooms available near playground
- plenty of parking in lot
Cons:
- small area and might be crowded with multiple kids present
- playground right next to foul ball zone for the softball field
- no swings or full playground structure
No comments