Morris Township to unveil plans for new Collinsville playground, March 8

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11h Dist.), center, with federal aid for Collinsville Playground reconstruction project, Feb. 24, 2023. Photo courtesy of Morris Township.
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A new and improved Collinsville Playground should start taking shape at 7 o’clock this evening, Wednesday, March 8, 2023, when Morris Township officials unveil plans at a public hearing at the Unity Charter School.

“This has been a long time coming,” Mayor Mark Gyorfy said at a windy press conference at the park last month, noting the neighborhood has lacked a hub since the Collinsville School closed in 1973. “And it’s our job to fill that void.”

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11th Dist.) came in February with $500,000 in federal funding for the project. The Township also received $500,000 last year in federal American Rescue Plan funds, and it’s pursuing grants from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and the state Green Acres Program.

Video: Rep. Mikie Sherrill at the Collinsville playground, Feb. 24, 2023:

Residents of Collinsville, the Township’s only neighborhood with a predominantly minority population, said in 2018 they felt neglected for years by the municipality’s governing body, then controlled by Republicans.

Rough slope to volleyball pit at Collinsville Playground, May 8, 2018. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Rough slope to volleyball pit at Collinsville Playground, May 8, 2018. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

Plans at the time called for about $90,000 of new playground equipment. Speaking out at a sometimes contentious meeting in a church hall, residents at the time expressed a grander vision.

It included a skate park; a pavilion for outdoor grilling; a multipurpose field for soccer, lacrosse and handball; and a two-story civic center with conference rooms, a study hall, technology bar and rooftop seating.

Members of the present Township Committee, now all Democrats, declined to telegraph the new Collinsville-Tucker Playground plans ahead of Wednesday’s meeting.

Jeannie McKay speaking at the Collinsville Playground, May 24, 2023. Video courtesy of Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s office. Screenshot by Kevin Coughlin.

But Gyorfy said last month that the reconstruction project will incorporate ideas from schoolchildren and from the Collinsville Civic and Improvement League Inc., established in 1946 and revived a few years ago to push for a better playground.

“I just can’t wait to see it happen,”  the League’s Jeannie McKay said at the ceremony.

Hinting at what’s to come, Sherrill told the assembled schoolkids that plans include a “water feature” for summer fun.

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