Outdoor fitness park donated by AARP opens

Barbara Baldon doesn’t stop by Lincoln Park often, but the 69-year-old Springfield resident says an outdoor fitness park that opened Friday will make her a more frequent visitor.

“This is fantastic,” Baldon, a retired Illinois Department of Human Services supervisor and volunteer for AARP Illinois, said as she checked out the all-weather, shaded area in a former grassy field near Lincoln Park Pavilion. “What better place to work out that is in nature.”

Baldon was among 70 people who turned out for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and formal opening of AARP FitLot Fitness Park on Springfield’s north end.

The 1,400-square-foot, $150,000 park — part of 88-acre Lincoln Park in the 1600 block of North Fifth Street — was paid for by AARP Illinois and donated to the Springfield Park District as part of the national AARP’s 60th anniversary celebration.

With 12 strength-building and aerobic exercise stations on a solid, springy and waterproof surface made out of rubber from recycled tires, the park is geared for people 50 and older but can be used for free by people of all ages and is designed to encourage regular exercise.

AARP is working with FitLot, a New Orleans-based not-for-profit organization to design and arrange for construction of similar open-air parks in every state over the next several years, according to Ryan Gruenenfelder, director of advocacy and outreach for AARP Illinois.

The Lincoln Park facility is the seventh such park to open in the United States and the only one planned for Illinois, AARP officials said.

Springfield was chosen to get one of the parks because the city already is a “community of presence” for AARP Illinois and the site of more than 100 AARP events each year, Gruenenfelder said.

“These parks represent our commitment to create livable communities,” said Gruenenfelder, a Springfield resident.

Leslie Sgro, president of the Springfield Park District board, said she was thrilled that AARP wanted to build a fitness park in Springfield.

The park district has one other outdoor fitness area, at Douglas Park near Senior Services of Central Illinois, that opened six years ago. That $40,000 fitness park was funded by the King’s Daughters organization and has seven work stations, but the exercises are more basic, Sgro said.

The facility at Lincoln Park “is much more like what you would see inside a gym,” she said.

“It’s a marvelous addition to the community and to the north end,” Sgro said.

The park district will offer free exercise classes that will incorporate the fitness center, park district executive director Derek Harms said. The classes, which aren’t ready to be announced yet, could begin within a month, he said.

Harms said the fitness center will be open the same hours as Lincoln Park — dawn to 10:30 p.m. every day.

Jack Handy, 67, president of the Springfield Pickleball Club and a member of the board for Illinois Senior Olympics, said the fitness center will be “a very great thing for our community.”

He equated the fitness stations to the former Universal equipment that used to be common in gyms and now are prevalent under different brand names in health clubs.

Some of the stations at Lincoln Park use a person’s body weight, such as bars for pull-ups and dips, while other stations, such as rustproof elliptical and stair-stepper machines, can provide an aerobic workout and be part of circuit-training routines, FitLot executive director Adam Mejerson said.

The stations also include a hand cycle and a sitting bench with adjustable resistance. There’s open floor space, too, and places to attach elastic resistance bands.

The Landscape Structures Inc. equipment and the rubberized surface are expected to last 15 to 20 years, Mejerson said.

“You have a nice, welcoming space that is inviting,” he said.

Mejerson said FitLot was founded in 2012 as a way of “repurposing underutilized urban spaces” with weather-resistant exercise equipment that can improve the quality of life.

Baldon, the AARP volunteer, said her own exercise program has been “hit and miss,” but the new fitness center could help her get on track. After trying out some of the exercise stations, she concluded that she needs to improve her arm strength.

She was surprised that the fitness stations include QR codes that can be scanned with a smartphone and lead to online instructional videos.

She liked the fact that there were trees nearby to provide shade and restrooms a few steps away in the pavilion. She said the fitness center is at the top of a hill in a highly visible location that made her feel safe.

“I’m excited that it’s outdoors so I can commune with nature while I’m exercising,” Baldon said.

Contact Dean Olsen: dean.olsen@sj-r.com, 788-1543, twitter.com/DeanOlsenSJR.