Jaycee Park on Broad Street will be updated in Spring of 2025. The park, one of seven in Greendale, is located in the center of Greendale and has been used by many residents over the years.
Many high school students and teachers drive by the park daily and have fond memories of going there when they were younger.
“I had my first t-ball/little league games there. Always wanted to ‘hit one over the fence in left’. Lots of fun playground moments with sisters,” theatre director Jeff Schaetzke, who grew up in Greendale, said.
The Greendale Park and Recreation Department and Greendale Schools announced that the Jaycee Park replacement was one of six priorities from the 2023 Recreation study. The department considered five different park options and narrowed it down to two. Voting is currently taking place by Greendale residents.
“I loved going to Jaycee Park when I was younger. My family and I used to ride our bikes to the village, and stop there on the way,” freshman Clara Svoboda said.
There is currently a field around Jaycee Park commonly used for baseball. The park is often very busy during the Fourth of July fireworks show. This is not the first time the park has had updates, as it looked very different from when some of the teachers played there many years ago.
“The playground at Jaycee I remember from my own youth in the 1970s, was far less charming but I remember having fun. The play area was made up of about eight concrete pipes, painted different colors,” math teacher Kate Hulett said. “Think of tunnels about ten feet long each and laying on their sides. They were different sizes – from maybe 2 feet to 5 feet in diameter. We’d crawl through or run through them, hide in them, and climb on them when we visited my great aunt who lived nearby.”
