Orland Park’s first accessible playground, designed for children of all abilities, is getting a major upgrade this month, 20 years after it’s debut.
The Kevin Hertz Memorial Playground at Centennial Park was built in 1992 and dedicated to the memory of the Orland Park resident who was born with spina bifida.
His mother, Mary Kay Hertz, said Kevin died in 1990 at age 11 following complications related to surgery. Even though he was young, Kevin’s outgoing nature and enthusiasm earned him a celebrity status in the community.
“People just liked being around him,” Hertz said. “He was very upbeat and very happy.”
A regular visitor at Centennial Park where his older brother Brian and younger sister Katie played baseball and softball, village officials said he gained a reputation as the friendly kid who knew everyone.
“He was the most positive kid and he was in the parks all the time,” said Mayor Dan McLaughlin.
When the playground was built in his memory, it was the most accessible in town and was designed to better serve kids with disabilities, officials said. The slides had higher walls, swings were built with back supports and ramps made the play structure easier to navigate.
Today, such features are fairly common for playgrounds, so Orland Park officials said they again want to make Kevin’s playground stand out.
“There’s some equipment there that, back in 1992, it was considered ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessible,” said Patricia Gira, village trustee and chair of the Parks, Recreation and Environmental Initiatives Committee. “Things have been changed, so it’s certainly time the playground was updated.”
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The new equipment will feature the village’s first rubberized play surface, which should make it easier for all children to get around. The improved playground has also been designed with a theme to match the nearby fields used for baseball and softball games.
All together, the equipment and installation will cost the village about $355,000, about $55,000 more than was budgeted, said Frank Stec, director of parks and building maintenance.
To make up the difference, the village will use $50,000 from the capital improvement fund and about $6,000 from the Sunny Pine Park project that came in under budget, according to village documents.
The new play area will include two separate play structures, one that is 100 percent accessible and a second that is about 78 percent accessible, Stec said, making it again the most accessible playground in the village.
Just as it was unveiled 20 years ago, the new playground will again be dedicated to Kevin during a 2 p.m. ceremony Oct. 6. Mary Kay Hertz said she and her husband, Richard, and the rest of their family will be there.
“After 20 years it’s been well used, which is a positive thing,” Hertz said. “So to spruce it up a bit will be very nice.”
Even though Kevin never had the chance to play at the park, today Hertz said his two nieces, Claire, 4, and Anna, 2, are doing the playing for him.
“They always want to go to Kevin’s park,” she said. “That’s what they call it.”