A northside Indianapolis park will get a playground update. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Development Commission approved the final plan for Tarkington Park Thursday.
The playground sits at the northwest corner of the park, across the street from the MLK Center, at 40th and Illinois streets. The playground north of the cafe was installed roughly twenty years ago, and city officials say it’s time for a replacement.
The plan’s features include playground equipment, a paved walkway and an outdoor shelter. Kyle Koger, the project manager for the project said.
“The focus of the playground is to provide a safe and active space for older children, those teens and tweens, if you will,” Kyle Koger, the project manager for the project, said. “And the goal of this project has been to provide equipment, playground equipment, that's more geared to them."
Some residents expressed concerns about how the city’s plans would impact the park’s trees. Initially, the plan would have involved cutting down twelve in the park. While the trees are not new, they did not meet the city’s requirements for what they call “heritage trees,” or trees which the city considers significant due to age, size or ecological value.
Project manager Kyle Koger says community concerns guided changes to the plan.
"We reevaluated the grading, kind of tightened up some of the slopes and contours, and were able to mitigate removal of those trees from 12 – originally proposed – down to three trees needing removal," Koger said.
The construction is funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment. The original grant was awarded to Butler University in 2024 and totalled $22.5 million. Just $1 million is going toward the demolition and reconstruction of the Tarkington Park playground.
Tarkington Park has seen other large investments in the last decade. In 2015, a $5 million construction project began on what would become the southern playground, splash pad, basketball court, and cafe.
A year and a half ago, the city began construction on a new football field, a new tennis court, and new pickleball courts. The $3 million project was named after a beloved coach and youth mentor.
Permits for the project are set to be awarded to the city in mid November. Afterwards, construction will begin, and the playground is slated to open May 2027.
Contact WFYI Digital Producer and Reporter Jeremy Reuben at jreuben@wfyi.org.
