Kiwanis Club Moves Forward With Hiley Park Improvement Project

The Glenwood Kiwanis Club is nearing the finish line in its four-year journey to make Hiley Park handicap accessible.

“We are almost there,” Kiwanis spokesperson Michelle Wright told members of the Glenwood City Council last week.

The 42-year-old city-owned park, located in a residential neighborhood on the north end of Hillcrest Ave., is named after Dan Hiley, the first Glenwood Kiwanis Club president. The club has been maintaining and making improvements to the park since it opened in 1984.

The nearly $200,000 in improvements include replacing the retaining wall behind the park’s playground, making the actual playground handicap-accessible with a pour-in-place surface, making the parking lot concrete and connecting current sidewalks at the park with the parking lot and other sidewalks. Additionally, the playground swings at the park will be replaced.

“The swings at Hiley are going to have to be replaced because they are not ADA (Americans With Disability Act) compliant,” said Wright. “They’re 10-foot swings and when we did the cost analysis, it is cheaper to replace the swings than to make the pour footing thicker in order to meet those requirements.”

The swings are adding about $6,500 to the cost of the project, but Wright is hopeful that she’ll be successful in getting grants from the Nebraska-Iowa Kiwanis Foundation and Walmart to offset the additional expense.

The club has already raised $189,000 for the project and Wright is hopeful another $16,000 will be collected.

At last week’s meeting, the city council approved a combination of bids from Great Outdoor and Cuttingham Recreation not to exceed $189,000 to carry out all three phases of the project.

The work is expected to be done by late summer, just in time for a community fun fest at the park to celebrate the improvements and new additions.

Major donations and grants for the project have come from multiple sources, including $5,000 from Kiwanis Club Of Glenwood, $40,000 from Iowa West Foundation, $93,500 from Iowa Department Of Natural Resources, $2,500 from First Interstate Bank, $17,500 from Glenwood State Bank and $1,500 from community sponsorships.