‘The kids chose a great playground’: Geometric climbing structure coming to Rolling Meadows park

Quito, a 15-foot high play structure manufactured by Pennsylvania-based Playworld, will be installed in July at Countryside Park in Rolling Meadows.
Courtesy of Rolling Meadows Park District

A Rolling Meadows park is set to become the first in Illinois to feature a geometric net climber on its playground, officials said.

The unique play structure is called Quito, a 15-foot high playhouse that allows kids “to climb, balance, and teeter their way in, over, and through,” according to Playworld, the commercial playground equipment manufacturer.

The structure will be installed in July, along with friendship swings for families and tire swing-style equipment for multiple users, at Countryside Park, 4360 Euclid Ave.

Children selected the new playground out of three proposals brought by vendors to a community input meeting in February.

“The kids chose a great playground,” said Superintendent of Parks Brian McKenna. “Out of the choices, this would have been the one I would have picked.”

The park district is paying Westchester-based sales agency Imagine Nation $165,000 for the new playground equipment, but officials expect to save about $65,000 by doing the installation in-house, McKenna said.

Park districts commonly donate old playgrounds around the world, but officials said the old Countryside Park playground, at 20 years old, is too outdated to be reused or donated.

Quito is named after the capital city of Ecuador, not only the highest capital in the world, but the one closest to the equator. The webbed play structure has bells at the top and ground levels, triangle windows and a triangle roof.

McKenna said the structure promotes a creative play experience as children attempt various ways to climb through the web.

“Children can climb on it differently each time they use it,” McKenna said. “With the slide, you go up the steps, sit on the slide and slide down. That experience isn’t going to change much. When you have a large climbing structure like Quito, children are offered a range of options for navigating and traversing the framework from various angles.”

The first Quito climber was installed in 2022 at a park in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where Playworld is headquartered.