NORWAY CITY MANAGER Dan Stoltman on top of Knights’ Kingdom, a playground in Strawberry Lake Park that the city hopes to replace with proceeds from the sale of surplus Renewable Energy Certificates, or RECs. (Jim Paul/Daily News photo)

NORWAY — The Knights’ Kingdom playground equipment at Strawberry Lake Park in Norway has seen better days.

Built in 1993, Knights’ Kingdom did not originate with the City of Norway. Instead, a committee of community members that included Lorna Flesher and Donna Hayes partnered with local schools and Playgrounds by Leathers of Ithaca, N.Y., to develop the project, raising funds through grants and donations.

Now, “it is a focal point of the city, it is very centrally located as far as families with children and people that like to walk or just get out,” Council Member Bret Kraemer said. “… It is an easy place to get to, there are no major highways by it and it is secure.”

But the structure, made almost entirely of wood, is showing its age. The boards are weathered, worn, some rotting.

Almost all of the wood chips below the equipment are gone. PVC pipes that carry the children’s voices from one end to the other are exposed and easy to trip over, which brings up another deficiency — the park is not ADA compliant.

Now, city officials have managed to find a funding source to address the future of Knights’ Kingdom — most likely replacing the three-decade-old equipment.

Kraemer said it will be difficult to see Knights’ Kingdom go.

“The community members that put this playground in place in 1993 worked really hard at it and it is disheartening that we have to take it down and replace it,” Kraemer said.

City Manager Dan Stoltman said while some of the worst boards have been replaced, Knights’ Kingdom suffers from deferred maintenance — there just hasn’t been the money or staff to keep it up over the years.

Stoltman says that if nothing is done, parts of Knights’ Kingdom may have to be shut down.

“It is similar to a lot of places — public works, the street operators, are the people that get the responsibility put on them and it gets left behind when you have parks and other responsibilities,” Stoltman said. “Over time it slowly happens. It just starts to slowly break down and that is kind of what happened here.”

The parks are a part of the general fund budget, competing with administration, police and public works, he added. There never seems to be enough left for parks.

In the past year, the City of Norway applied for but did not receive a Spark Grant through the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The grant would have been for up to $1 million and required no matching funds. At the time the city had estimated it would spend about $700,000 for new playground equipment. Presently, the city is looking at a wide range of options, ranging from $200,000 to $600,000, depending on how much money can be raised. Kraemer said in addition to the equipment itself, it will cost more than $80,000 for the concrete and rubber surface over the concrete to make the playground safe and ADA compliant.

Kraemer said talks have taken place for at least six or seven years about what to do with Knights’ Kingdom — from adding to it, fixing it or replacing it — but it always got set aside due to lack of money.

But a recent deal the city entered may free up some funding for the project.

The Norway City Council on Sept. 4 approved a deal to sell the city’s excess Renewable Energy Certificates for the next six years to BP Energy.

RECs are tradable commodities that represent electricity generated from a renewable energy source and fed into the shared system of power lines. The city’s hydroelectric plant is capable of producing 27,000 to 30,000 RECs annually.

Clear Energy Brokerage and Consulting LLC told the council BP Energy was willing to buy a substantial number of RECs at $5.50 each, the highest amount the city has ever received.

At the Nov. 6 meeting, the council approved using the 2023-2025 payments of $126,500 annually — a total of $364,500 — to replace Knights’ Kingdom. To get the project underway in 2025, the 2025 installment would be borrowed from the electric department and repaid in 2026 when payment is received.

The project was turned over to the parks and recreation board for development.

“Realistic funding makes this a whole different process,” Stoltman said. “Sometimes in the back of your mind you know the funding is never going to be there. Really going to have money makes it a much more fun process.”

Having at least some money for the project also may make it possible to go after additional grants, knowing some matching funds are available, Stoltman added. He and Kraemer hope donations will come in for the project as well.

More than donations, community input will be needed going forward, Kraemer said. They want to again enlist the schools and students, especially with the design.

“We are all adults and we can say, ‘That looks nice, but I am not going to play on it,'” Kraemer said.

“Then from the parents’ standpoint, what do they need? A fence? Bleachers?” Stoltman said. “What do they need to make their experience with their children better?”

Stoltman hopes that new playground equipment will be a catalyst for even more improvements at Strawberry Lake.

They both urged that those who would like to get involved attend the city’s Parks and Recreation Board meetings at 6:30 p.m. on the fourth Wednesday of every month.

Stoltman also suggested checking the city’s Facebook page for special meetings on the new playground.

He hopes work can begin in the spring or summer.