Water playgrounds enjoy enormous popularity in high summer temperatures. There are of course sad looks when such a playground is not operational. For the visitors of the Waldspielpark Tannenwald there is now good news: After less than a year of renovation and new construction, the water playground in Frankfurt's south is almost ready. And so it will soon be time again for the water to spray out of the ground in high fountains. From boulders at the edge of the water play area it splashes only very cautiously.
Harmoniously, the new water playground with its natural stone play surface blends into the park landscape at the Tannenwald forest playground. "In Frankfurt, most of our water play parks are currently facing fundamental renovation. However, due to the high costs, we cannot tackle all the playgrounds at the same time," said Head of the Environment Rosemarie Heilig at the trial run of the facility on Tuesday, July 10. "That's why I'm all the more pleased that we've worked together with the city of Neu-Isenburg to renovate and rebuild the popular water playground here. I think this has become a wonderful place to play and splash around for Frankfurt and Neu-Isenburg children," the head of department said enthusiastically.
In redesigning the Tannenwald water playground, Frankfurt's Parks Department worked closely with the city of Neu-Isenburg. Neu-Isenburg's mayor Herbert Hunkel praised this constructive inter-municipal cooperation, saying, "The good cooperation that the two municipalities are practicing with this project is a nice continuation of the neighborhood agreement between the two municipalities of Frankfurt and Neu-Isenburg." Both towns have jointly operated the facility in Frankfurt's municipal forest since 1961. On behalf of Neu-Isenburg, park rangers will keep order at the water playground.
In total, the renovation and new construction of the forest playground cost around 1.3 million euros. Neu-Isenburg contributed 200,000 euros to the costs of the water playground, amounting to around 870,000 euros, and Frankfurt's neighbouring town also received 300,000 euros in funding from the "Social City" development programme of the state of Hesse. The cost share of the city of Frankfurt was 370,000 euros. Frankfurt invested an additional approximately 464,000 euros for the new operations building.
During the renovation, the water treatment plant was also replaced. Now automated monitoring and control of the water quality is possible. This means that the chlorine content and Ph value of the water are regularly checked and automatically re-dosed. As a result, water samples only have to be taken by the public health department once a week. The plant is housed in the new operating building. There are also modern toilets there.
Although the renovation of the Tannenwald water play area was not at the top of the priority list, the financial participation of the city of Neu-Isenburg made it possible to bring this construction measure forward. The water play area is thus also an alternative for the Scheerwald and Schwanheim facilities, which are currently shut down and are not expected to reopen until next year.
Rosemarie Heilig hopes that it is then very soon "Wasser marsch!" at the Tannenwald. Before that, the piping system has to be thoroughly flushed and the chemical water purification has to be adjusted. Only then can the health authorities give the green light for the water quality. Presumably on Friday, July 20, the facility will then finally be released
