After five years of planning, officials broke ground on a playground at Monarch Preschool in College Park’s Hollywood neighborhood on June 1 and administrators said construction will begin this month.

The playground, which Hughes Johnson, the school’s chief administrative officer, estimated will cost nearly $400,000, received $50,000 from College Park last year and $250,000 from the state in 2021. The area is slated for completion by the end of the summer.

Johnson said the playground has been in the works for a long time.

“It’s always been part of the plan to construct the playground,” Johnson said. “During all these years at this point, we’ve just been working through the process of trying to get one.”

The school has a fenced-in area for tricycles, portable water tables, balls and other outdoor toys, but no permanent playground. Monarch Director Krissie Taylor said the playground will take the place of that area on the side of the private preschool.

Taylor said the project hasn’t started yet because of delays with permits.

“We would get one permit from the City of College Park, and then we had to go to Prince George’s County government, and then we had to go to different small entities within them,” Taylor said. “All these different scopes of work, through architects and builders and interviewing people.”

Taylor said the contractor was close to beginning construction two years ago, but a stormwater management problem delayed the project further. During a preconstruction meeting, a problem arose with stormwater drainage, Johnson said.

“We’ve got to make sure that the water in the playground area has a place to go safely and appropriately,” Johnson said.

The school partnered with the city to handle the stormwater, according to Taylor.

College Park City Councilmember Jacob Hernandez (District 1) has been involved in getting the project moving.

“We’ve been working on this project for quite some time,” Hernandez said. “It ran into a series of delays. I think that, you know, through partnership [with the city], we’ve been able to achieve a lot of different things that we needed to get to.”

Hernandez said the city has been working with the preschool to do some public infrastructure improvements, including the stormwater project and improvements to the parking lot and a sidewalk.

“With the idea of it, I think it’s when you do any sort of major renovation, you have to do some sort of public improvement,” Hernandez said.

Taylor said she worked with playground equipment suppliers Sparks@Play and Landscape Structures to design the space.

“I wanted to have one main piece of equipment out there,” Taylor said. “I wanted students to be able to climb and jump off things and have interactive panels.”

Taylor said because Monarch’s students are 3 to 5 years old, she decided not to install monkey bars or swings. Playground rubber will be installed on the ground only around the main piece of equipment to preserve green space.

Hernandez said parents and Monarch students have been promised a playground for quite some time, so it is important to get the ball rolling.

“Early childcare development has been a priority of the [city] council across the city,” Hernandez said. “I’m hopeful that the playground will improve the quality of life of the residents in the community, but also demonstrate the partnership that the city can have with some of the private entities that are servicing our residents in order to improve the great city that we live in.”

Taylor said she hopes the playground will draw families to the school to boost enrollment and encourage parents to engage their children in outdoor play.

“Not every child gets to go to a local playground or go outside and play,” Taylor said. “We always say it’s not safe for children right now to play outside all the time, so hopefully this will be a safe space for everyone to play during the day.”

Johnson agreed.

“We all, at least most people, have such a fond memory of playgrounds,” Johnson said. “It’s where we went and had fun and we built our social skills. … We just want it to be a place for our kids and their families to be able to come in and make joy happen.”