Hermiston’s shiny new playground got a little shinier last week.

Volunteers from local service clubs and churches descended on Funland Playground on Thursday, May 27, to scrub the construction grime off the play equipment before contractors pour the colorful, rubberized play surface that will run underneath. Once the final touches are added, the playground is expected to have a soft opening sometime in mid-June, with a grand opening celebration on the Fourth of July.

“This is a magical place, and I hope you have fun getting in there and cleaning everything,” Parks and Recreation Director Larry Fetter told volunteers.

Tom Ditton got straight to work scrubbing the giant vegetables that children will be able to climb on in the farming section of the playground. The section also includes a set of tall plastic slides leading from a tower built to look like a silo, and a tunnel and pipes meant to mimic irrigation infrastructure.

“I’ve started cleaning this giant hot pepper here, indicating, apparently, that people grow peppers here,” Ditton said. “I wasn’t sure if they did.”

He showed up with other Kiwanis Club members, and said it was exciting to see the playground almost complete after the service club had contributed financially to it.

Patricia Alder, who sat on the steering committee that helped design the new Funland and fundraise for it, brought her family out to help with the work party. She said she was very pleased with how the playground was turning out after all the work the committee put into designing it.

“It’s been fun to watch the dream come to fruition,” she said.

Her daughter Cosette Alder, 6, was using an oversized sponge to help her dad clean off part of the extensive playground.

Cosette said she was sad when the old, wooden version of the playground burned down, but not now that she has seen the new one. She said she was most excited to play on the pirate ship section.

“It’s a really nice playground,” she said.

Ethan Jemmett, 12, and Dallin Smith, 13, were working in the covered wagon and teepee section of the playground after exploring it. Ethan described the playground as “huge,” and said he really liked it.

Dallin said his favorite parts were a giant spider web of ropes for climbing, the three big slides and the tunnel to crawl through. He said he used to play tag on the old playground all the time and he is looking forward to playing it on the new one.

“There is way more stuff to go on,” he said.

The playground features a variety of climbing equipment, tunnels, slides and poles, broken up into sections that reflect different themes. A pirate ship being attacked by a kraken dominates one corner, but most of the features were designed to reflect Hermiston’s history.

The structures will be complete almost exactly 25 years after the original Funland Playground opened on June 9, 1996. That initial wooden structure, built to mimic a castle, was the brainchild of Jerry and Kathy Blankenship. According to the Hermiston Herald at the time, it took 1,920 volunteers about 9,000 hours to build it, using 32,394 feet of lumber and 504 pounds of nails.

That structure burned down in a suspected arson in 2001, and was rebuilt in March 2002. That structure burned down in another suspected arson on May 8, 2019.

The new playground is made of metal and compressed plastic, with a soft rubberized surface underneath. City officials hope moving away from wood will deter another fire. The playground was also designed to be more open and difficult for troublemakers to hide in, and will be watched over by a new camera system with a live feed.