The Municipality of Shawville is in the process of upgrading certain facilities at Mill Dam Park.

The $110,000 project will provide a variety of new amenities to the town’s only park for children and seniors alike, and several of them are already installed.

So far this spring, the town has put in two new play structures, one of which is wheelchair-accessible, as well as new outdoor exercise machines and new bathrooms. This week, a crew is at work creating a paved path through the park.

“We extended the size of the playground by taking out sod and putting more sand and we and we paved the area around the washroom,” said Shawville mayor Bill McCleary.

This spring’s updates to the park are the first of a few.

Katie Sharpe, Shawville councillor and chair of . . .

the town’s parks committee, said the municipality plans to implement a wide array of new additions to the park, including a signalling crosswalk on Clarendon Street, as well as an observation deck.

“The crosswalk itself will be happening this summer. We’re in the midst of getting our quotes and stuff together for that,” Sharpe said. “The observation deck, I’m not sure if that would happen this year.”

Sharpe said these renovations come after several instances of vandalization at the park over the past year, including somebody stealing the security camera placed at the park just a few weeks ago.

“We don’t really know why or what’s happening, but typically they’re vandalizing the washrooms and they’re now stealing the cameras,” Sharpe said.

McCleary explained that issues started to arise last year, with teens clogging toilets with toilet paper in one instance, and flooding the bathrooms by clogging the sinks in another instance.

“We only have the one park,” Sharpe said. “It’s really the only green space that we have. And I think we need to maintain that as well as add in more because we need lots of space to be outside.”