For an Energetic and Strong Community: Let SSM be your Personal Trainer
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Let us be your personal trainer. Take advantage of our experience to build a strong and healthy community park system.
Just like athletes follow a training regimen to keep their muscles strong, your community maintains its strength by developing a recreational plan with goals and measurable achievements. Your community is unique. The level of service you provide to your residents must be tailored to the appropriate range, quantity and quality of recreation facilities within your fiscal limits. Both active and passive opportunities are essential to the development and the maintenance of a strong community.
A trainer builds an exercise regimen based on the desired outcomes; specific exercises, targeted at muscle groups, elicit specific results. Your park system should work the same way. It is maintained and strengthened by integrating various park sizes and types to meet the specific needs of your community. The key to developing a strong park system is to determine your needs and then develop a plan that provides the appropriate types of recreational opportunities in the right locations.
Are you flexing the right park muscles to meet your community’s fitness plan?
- A mini-park is used for isolated or limited recreational needs. These are small parks (less than an acre) and are found in a residential setting. These could be found in a subdivision or at a senior center or daycare center.
- If the community muscle you need to flex focuses on informal active or passive recreation, then a neighborhood park may need to be added to your park system. The neighborhood park covers a larger area, ideally between 5 and 10 acres, serving a specific neighborhood of up to a half mile service area.
- Community parks serve a broader purpose than neighborhood parks. These parks are designed to accommodate a variety of activity and community-based recreation needs. They typically are between 25 and 50 acres and serve two or more neighborhoods within a three mile service area.
- Regional parks are generally large parks that draw visitors from a region or several communities that can be an hour or more away. These parks sometimes have historic significance or a unique attribute that make them special and often have a commercial component as well.