Watch for whimsical pop up parks in Vernon

VERNON – A special surprise will be popping up in a Vernon park sometime this fall.

It’s part of new city initiative to bring interest and excitement to underused spaces and will see a variety of temporary equipment — such as brightly painted Adirondack chairs, a piano, drums and a massive xylophone — installed in surprise locations. 

“There’s a lot of under-utilized areas within parks that we want to make more whimsical,” city parks planner Kendra Kryszak says. “We want to create little pockets of interest and fun.”

A number of Vernon parks are earmarked for future Pop Up Park improvements, but the first will be rolled out in the green space by the transit terminus on 31 Avenue.

“We’ll have the piano and xylophone so kids can play while waiting for the bus, and the chairs so people can relax and have a coffee. It’s for multiple users to enjoy the space,” Kryszak says.

As the project evolves, the pop up park equipment might stay anywhere from a few weeks to a couple months before moving and providing the same benefits to a different public space that needs it, Kryszak says.

People can expect to see improvements pop up at the bus loop sometime this fall. By the spring, the city plans to have permanent improvements installed, freeing up the pop up park equipment for a new, secret location.

“That’s the interesting thing about pop up parks, you don’t necessarily tell people where they are. People get to find them; one person might say, ‘Did you see those bright chairs at the transit terminus?’ and word is spread that way,” she says. “There are numerous areas around town that could use something whimsical and fun.”

To contact a reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infonews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.