Above: The park now has more than just benches for the public to enjoy. (images edited from photos posted by Andrew Pfaff)
If you’re looking for a way to spend some quality time with family/friends in town this fall — before it gets too cold to enjoy — make plans to hang out at the newly enhanced downtown Heritage Park.
This month, the Town added new equipment that should give the community a reason to make the most of the public space. The project was funded by a grant from the Choate Fund for public recreation in Southborough.
Thanks to the grant and work by the DPW, the community can use new picnic tables and play games in the park. The many available games cover a wide range of ages and interests. Most are table top games (from Candy Land to Mah Jongg), but there is also equipment for physical games and activities (like Kan Jam and jump ropes).
The games/equipment are in a lock box that the public can access using a code appropriate for the “Heritage Park”, so hopefully easy to remember. It’s the year the Town was incorporated — 1727.
The date should be memorable, since the town had been promoting the upcoming 2027 Tricentennial. (Speaking of which, the increased use of the park may also make community members more interested in the Tricentennial Committee’s fundraiser selling engraved bricks to be placed in the park.)
The hope is that community members will enjoy the equipment and respect the need to take good care of it and lock it back up when they are done.
A picture of the park shows that the park benches, including the one dedicated to late resident Kim Tolander, still remain in the park alongside the new tables.
Select Board Vice Chair Andrew Pfaff initially shared the news of the park enhancements in a closed Facebook group on October 1st. He also reported it publicly at this week’s Select Board meeting. Since I still hadn’t seen any printed public announcements, I sought (and received) his permission to share the following details from his Facebook post with readers:
Exciting improvements are now available at Heritage Park! (Located at the corner of St Marks St and Marlboro Rd, next to the library)
Thanks to a grant from the Trustees of the Choate Fund, we’ve added three new picnic/game tables along with a collection of games and activities for residents of all ages to enjoy. One table has a removable bench so it is wheelchair accessible.
The Heritage Park game box includes:
- Mahjong set and a playing mat (3)
- Chess & checkers set (3)
- Rummikub (2)
- Cribbage (2)
- Playing Cards (2)
- Blokus XL (2)
- Scrabble (2)
- Candy Land
- Trivial Pursuit
- Kan Jam
- BULZiBUCKET
- Frisbees
- Jump Ropes
- Hacky Sacks
- Additional family board games and activities
🔐The combination to the game box is 1727 the year Southborough was incorporated!
Everything is there for the community to enjoy, so please help us keep it that way.
Please take care of the games and equipment, return everything to the storage box when you are finished, and make sure the box is closed and locked.
A big thank you to the Southborough DPW for their help assembling and installing the new tables, and to the Trustees of the Choate Fund for providing the grant funding that made these improvements possible.
We hope you’ll stop by Heritage Park, grab a game, enjoy a picnic, and spend some time with family, friends, and neighbors.
Enjoy, and please help us take care of everything for the next person!
A lot of residents were relieved when Southborough completed Heritage Park (aka pocket park/St. Mark’s Park) next to the library a few years ago.1 But the small park with a few benches wasn’t drawing much use.
With winter around the corner, the season for use this year may not be long. But hopefully, the games will still be in good shape when the nicer outdoor weather begins to break out again in the spring.
- The area was no longer the dirt pile eyesore that had been there while the controversial construction project was paused.
