Cameron Run Playground by Soft Play
Wishing to offer the community of Alexandria a new and versatile play attraction, project managers at Cameron Run envisioned an addition that would complement their existing waterpark and extend the summer season into the spring and fall. “We were looking to make a big impact,” says Blythe Russian, director of Great Waves Waterpark. “We liked the idea of an addition with no water, no lifeguards, no chemicals, yet one that delivers an impressive feature to the waterpark and can serve many guests at one time.” The Great Waves committee wanted to expand the park’s “dry play” reach and appeal to children ages 2-12. They knew that more variety would bring area residents back to visit the park more often.
After an extensive proposal process, Great Waves hired Soft Play to design the Great Waves playground because of their experience with outdoor play structures and creative approach to theming. Russian says that the team wanted a company that would work with them on developing the right product to meet their expectations. In the end, Soft Play offered the best play feature options and theming elements. “It was an enormous undertaking, a large part of Soft Play’s business comes from the Quick Service Restaurant market,” said Win Cook, Sales Support Manager at Soft Play. “This project incorporated all of our key components, from conceptual planning to build the largest frame in our company history.” Soft Play presented a Tropical Beach theme and created a special waterpark mascot, Sunny the Sand shark, to play along with the summertime ambiance.
As one of Soft Play’s largest public sector projects to date, the Great Waves playground showcases the company’s most advanced technological building methods, particularly the use of Soft Contained Play Systems with the exclusive Dura Frame System. The Great Waves project was designed to reduce the amount of wear as seen on items found in earlier generations of soft contained playgrounds and offer lower long-term maintenance and repair costs for their customers and operators. This technology delivers a convenient, easy to manage through the use of Tuffnet barrier panels and plastic extrusions on vertical posts. Tuffnet panels are framed in a plastic extrusion as well as 3.5” columns, as opposed to the traditional 2” pipe with post padding. The sturdier building base fortifies a taller playground structure such as this unit, which rises as tall as 30 feet at some points. Soft Play is the only playground manufacturer in the industry to build with the Dura Frame design.
The play area features several slides, including a 32-foot long Triple Slide and four Spiral Slides. One of the Spiral Slides offers a spectacular ride, descending all the way from the top of the 30-foot climbing tower structure. This structure also has an adult-friendly climbing space in the middle, allowing parents to play with their children. This same feature also allows Great Waves staff to easily inspect and perform routine maintenance such as daily cleaning of the playground. The toddler area offers a protected play area for smaller kids as well as a comfortable seating area for parents. The area is shaded to keep kids and parents comfortable and to protect tots’ sensitive skin from sunburns.
Soft Play spruced up the Surfer theme with a custom color palate, tropical thatching, shades, and special 3D Sunny the Sand shark as well as tropical/surfer graphics. “The play structure can be seen from Eisenhower Road – a major road so it provides great curb appeal,” says Russian. “We love the fact that there are interactive pieces to this play feature: the sit-n-spin, the wobble hopper, the clean machine, the car, the beach ball, and the rock wall. There will be hours of entertainment for our families.” Russian predicts that the new play structure will be a popular attraction for corporate events and family reunions.
Ken Schober, Vice President and General Manger of Soft Play and Little Tikes say he couldn’t have been happier with the final product. “We believe that the exposure will provide future opportunities for us at other regional parks which have water play and see the benefit in broadening their appeal with some dry play attractions.”
