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The SMILE playground at Haskell Field in Sudbury is the only Sudbury playground under the jurisdiction of the Sudbury Park and Recreation department. All other playgrounds are school playgrounds, which are managed and maintained by the Sudbury Public Schools school district.
The Park and Recreation department has communicated plans to renovate the playground to residents over the course of 2025, but the final product has left some residents wondering what exactly the Town did with $285,000 appropriated by Town Meeting in 2021.
The Town Meeting article called for removal of a large tree at the center of the playground because the root system was damaging the poured-in-place rubberized surface. This posed an accessibility issue, but was also a tripping hazard. The article report in 2021 stated “The current PIP has ripped and cracked, and has been pushed up by the roots of the large tree in the park as well as trees which border the park on the outside of the fence. These uneven surfaces do not allow for wheelchairs to move easily throughout the playground and pose a tripping hazard. The tree in the center of the playground will be removed and replaced with a shade structure.”
The report went on to add “The Park and Recreation Department will investigate the preservation of the trees outside the fence but adjacent to the playground. These trees will either be preserved or replaced by a more suitable variety.”
Fast forward to July 2025, and all the trees referenced by the article have been removed. But no replacements have been planted, and no shade structure has been installed, leaving a heat-conductive playing surface exposed to full sun all day long.
The warrant article report went on to say “Playground equipment that is not ADA compliant and unsupported by the manufacturer for replacement parts will be removed and replaced with modern equipment with appropriate shade structures.”
In lieu of any of the proposed replacements, a small, homeowner-grade play structure now sits where a large, noncompliant commercial structure previously stood.
Back to the Drawing Board
Residents voiced frustration on social media soon after the playground reopening was announced in July, 2025. The loss of trees for shade and a sense of place were one point of frustration. But the fact that over $200,000 of public funds were spent just to lose shade and play structures appeared to be the bigger frustration.
Part of the challenge, according to the latest meeting of the Park and Recreation Commission, was a multi-year delay in getting the project started. The Park and Recreation department cited construction of the new Fairbank Community Center as the cause for the delay over the last few years. The department ended up using the playground as part of the Sudbury Summer camp program since some of its typical facilities were unavailable during construction.
Unfortunately, with that delay came years of high inflation and cost escalation. When the project finally got rolling in 2025, the Department of Public Works was tapped to execute some of the work with in-house resources at lower cost than bidding them out. That would stretch the now-outdated budget a little further, but not far enough to complete the project that was proposed to Town Meeting.
The play structure that was removed was, in essence, condemned. Commissioners expressed full support for its removal given the clear safety hazards and compliance risks. But cost escalation on the play surface ended up using more of the budget than originally anticipated, leaving significantly less left in the budget for replacement structures.
The play structure replacement was cut out of the project, along with the proposed shade structures. Though nobody looked into pricing for those components; which is what the Park and Recreation commissioners are proposing now.
The backup plan, according to Park and Recreation Department director Dennis Mannone in early 2025, was to put one of the department’s canopy tents inside the playground as a temporary solution.
According to Mannone at the July 28 meeting of the Park and Recreation Commission, the project is roughly $30,000 under budget, but a replacement play structure could cost more than $80,000. Park and Recreation Commission Chair, Mara Huston, presented renderings from the original proposal which included an accessible play structure and two large shade structures.
While no commitments were made during the meeting, it did sound as though the Town could be proceeding with plans to install a temporary tent for shade in the playground, and might explore options for permanent shade structures with the remaining funds in the budget. The Park and Recreation Commission is exploring high-level cost estimates and funding sources to replace the now-removed play structure, too. However, that would likely be subject to a future appropriation at Town Meeting.
If the Town is going to deliver on the 2021 proposal for the playground, it could take another year or two.
Commissioner Ben Carmel raised concerns on this point on Monday. “This isn’t an expansion of the playground. To me, this is no different than when the second basketball court got value engineered out of the community center. Right? We’re literally taking something that we had, removing it, and now we don’t have a plan for how to replace it.” (45:00)
He went on to question the timeline for replacement. “But if we don’t get some idea and try to get some money then it’s not this year, it’s next year that we would do it. Which means it’s going to take two years before we can get the bids, shut down the playground again, piss everyone off in town again, and now it’s going to be three years with a giant wood fiber hole in the playground.”
Don’t Hold Your Breath
After some lengthy discussion during the July 28 Park and Recreation Commission meeting, Park and Recreation Director Dennis Mannone voiced frustration with the direction of the conversation. “To be quite honest, I’m pretty much done with the playground at this point. We can get some information and move for a phase two. But this thing just took me like three months to organize and get through. I’m not diving back into another playground renovation. We just finished it. Let’s let it breathe a little bit. Let’s figure out what folks want moving forward. We’re all gung-ho. We’re just one little department. I’m working fifteen hour days. I have no time to be digging up all this stuff. I gotta go in at 4:30 in the morning and fill a pool. So it is what it is.” (57:00)
Carmel, and several commissioners, had acknowledged that the department was busy, but reminded Mannone that the commissioners were willing to do the work; they just needed to know who to coordinate with on the Town side. Finance Director and Assistant Town Manager Victor Garofalo chimed in to tell the commission they were free to pursue quotes for playground equipment, and they could discuss logistics later.
Much of the discussion over the course of the evening revolved around the funding and staffing challenges inside the Park and Recreation department. That has been a hot topic for the commissioners for multiple years. Mannone pointed out that his department has no revenue source to pay for the playground, and therefore no funds to maintain it. That reopened questions about whether his department should have any responsibility for it given their funding model.
The commission eventually moved on to get updates on other projects, including the long-delayed Feeley Field Phase 2 project, which is going back for quotes to start the work. Mannone described that process as an effort to find out what work they can complete within their existing budget. That project was approved at Town Meeting in May of 2023, and could be exposed to the same cost escalation and value engineering forces that impacted the SMILE playground project. The commission will learn more in August or September, according to Mannone.
Ultimately, there was no clear path forward for the SMILE playground. Shade structures may or may not be coming. A replacement play structure may or may not be coming, and replacement plantings were not discussed. If anything appeared certain after all was said and done, it was that any further changes or enhancements to the playground will take significant time to come to fruition. With other recreation capital projects following a similar trajectory, the public will likely need to wait even longer to find out just how far the associated appropriations will go.