With leftover funds from the construction of Crossroads Community Park in downtown Seymour, the city has purchased gaming tables to install in the park built in 2018.
Around $14,000 remained in the park’s account that had to be spent, said Bob Tabeling, director of the Seymour Parks and Recreation Department.
Some of the money also is being used to add air conditioning to the park’s restrooms.
“One of the biggest things we heard is when we have a lot of people showing up, the restrooms are too hot and muggy during the summer,” he said.
The air conditioning should be up and running before the summer’s first Seymour CityJam concert scheduled for 6 p.m. June 20.
Tabeling said the gaming tables will be shipped sometime this month.
They will serve two purposes: To provide seating at the park for people to eat lunch and to give people the opportunity to play games such as checkers, chess, dominoes and backgammon outdoors.
The concrete picnic tables will be permanent fixtures at the park, and people will have to supply their own game pieces to play on them.
Along with the gaming tables for Crossroads, Tabeling said the department is looking to purchase some outdoor games for Freeman Field Park, too.
“What we’ve looked at is three sets of cornhole and an outdoor ping-pong table,” Tabeling said.
Like the gaming tables, both the cornhole sets and ping-pong tables are made of concrete to make them too heavy to be moved or stolen.
The funding for the games is part of a grant from the Jackson County Visitor Center, Tabeling said.
That grant also includes funding for the addition of three new shelter houses at Freeman Field. Those will be placed throughout the park to provide covered areas near the cross country course and baseball fields.
Construction on the 20-by-20-foot shelter houses will start by the end of June and should be completed this summer.
A fourth shelter house may be added in the fall with additional grant money, Tabeling said.
