Verona Park Playground, the .75-acre playground located in the 5th largest park of the Essex County Park system in New Jersey, has become a popular attraction for local families and visitors alike. The improved playground replaced two outdated playgrounds, which created a safety issue for children and parents visiting the site. In 2018, 15 years after the installation of the two playgrounds, the Verona Park playground was renovated to provide an enhanced experience where children could play and explore their surroundings. This renovation was part of a $2 million improvement plan by the County for Verona Park.
There are a lot of factors that need to be considered when designing a playground. The site must be functional in different ways, provide a safe recreational space for children, and give parents the sense of safety needed to let their children explore and learn while in the playground.
The Landscape Architect had to address several issues throughout the design process for the Verona Park Playground that included the site's topography, under-utilized shade pavilion and decentralized play areas that contributed to poor sight lines for parents. By leveling out a central area for the new playground to provide better sight line for parents, an 'adventure hill' was created towards the back of the playground that stands over eight feet tall. This 'adventure hill' incorporates slides and several different climbing apparatuses that create a unique and imaginative play feature and span most of the length of the playground. The feature also changes in height to accommodate younger users who would not be as comfortable or able to utilize the higher areas of the 'adventure hill'. A continuous path along the top of this feature, together with a pedestrian path, stitches the various elements of the park together including the shade pavilion that was previously disconnected. These key moves helped create a unified playground area while utilizing the site's topography to enhance the various levels of play space and accessibility with embankment slides and climbing elements.

 
Other considerations the Landscape Architect had in mind while designing Verona Park Playground include:
• Providing a variety of playground equipment to capture the imagination of as many children as possible
• Plenty of seating via seat walls, benches, and picnic tables, and providing shade with trees and shade sails
• An open, flexible space that allows children the opportunity to be creative in how they play
• A rubberized safety surface, a new fence, a new drinking fountain and sidewalks.
During the construction process, the County had to remove one of the park's oldest trees, an iconic oak tree that was part of the original plan for the park, designed by the Olmstead Brothers. The oak was found diseased in 2017 and its removal, although upsetting for some, was necessary to prevent accidents. This removal had the approval of the Verona Conservancy, a non-profit founded in 1995 that oversees the maintenance of the Verona Park, and several other parks in the township. The tree was replaced with a large, 6" caliper red maple that will one day tower over the playground, providing shade from the sun.
The playground was inaugurated in the early summer of 2018. At the opening ceremony of the park, former Verona Mayor Kevin Ryan mentioned that "there (were) already hundreds of kids here, and it's not even officially open," which demonstrated the interest of the community in the renovations
of the playground.
In the summer of 2022, the County resurfaced the playground due to the high traffic. To this day, the number of kids of all ages that utilize the new playground at any given time has been in the hundreds. Families come from all over to enjoy the playground, which has become their children's 'playground of choice'. Many locals have also stated how this playground has become a source of pride within the community, justifying their reasons for living in the area.