Nonexistent neighborhood parks mean kids and parents need not risk actual social interaction with other kids and parents on public swing sets and monkey bars - - for 5K or so, we can further heighten our isolation.
But what choice do suburbanites have? Kids have to have a place to play, and developers can't be bothered anymore to provide accessible amenities of any kind, much less a community playground (and recent new developer-friendly laws only make the situation worse). And, of course, you have to get a bigger and better playset than the folks down the road; these things are statements to many people.
I've heard the grumbling of parents who spend the big bucks for gigantic, extravagant personal playsets that are in open view of adjoining backyards, complaining that other kids - - their own kids' friends - - are using the thing for nothing. Time to build a fence.
A positive note in the story: The past year has been tough for playset sales. This can only be a good sign (why buy one of these monsters when you have a community park in walking distance?).
Photo/Jim Bovin/ for the Journal Sentinel
Play sets get pricey
Parents paying thousands for tots to romp on high-end jungle gyms
By DORIS HAJEWSKI
dhajewski@journalsentinel.comAva Budecki is a little kid, but her outdoor play set is a monster. A Rainbow Monster 2, to be exact, which set her parents back about $5,000.
Little Ava, age 2, is part of a generation of children who are swinging large.
When their parents were kids, they were happy with a couple of swings and maybe a glider, hanging from a metal crossbeam. Now that those Generation Xers are doing the shopping, they are finding that the sky's the limit for play sets - in size and in price.
Today's play sets come with rock walls, rope ladders, sandboxes and tunnel slides. Some have towers with roofs and rotating plastic guns mounted on their walls.
"I sold one in Michigan for $12,000," said Henry Ruff, general manager of SugarIsland Play Systems in Sun Prairie. It was the most expensive one he's seen go out the door since he started there in 1989. "I never thought I'd sell anything like that."
Even so, it's far from the top of what affluent parents are shelling out for high-end play sets.
Rainbow Play Systems' King Kong Carl McKee Custom, the ultimate in luxury from the Brookings, S.D., company, has a footprint as big as a house: 46 feet by 58 feet, with towers that top out at 16 feet. The Carl McKee includes a 37.5-square-foot castle fort; two 73-square-foot multilevel clubhouse forts; and a 25-square-foot King Kong penthouse.
The set uses 4,828 board feet of lumber, weighs over 5 tons and costs $39,768. Installation is another $6,156.
Who would spend that much? A member of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team bought one, said Tim Steffens, who sells the sets at the Rainbow store in Pewaukee.
But Ruff and others say the five-figure sales are few and far between. And to tell the truth, it's been a tough year for play set sales, according to area retailers.
For the 12 months ended in February, American consumers spent $183 million on outdoor play equipment, according to the NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y., research firm. That represents an 18% decrease in dollar volume and a 20% decrease in units sold, according to David Riley, a spokesman for NPD.
"The economy and the slowing housing market have definitely had an effect on it," said Rick Buss, owner of Amerigym Corp. in Waukesha, which makes Merry Time play sets.
Springtime sales rush
The situation has only made competition among makers of play sets more intense, particularly in the spring, which is the equivalent of the holiday shopping season for the play set industry.
"A whole year of sales happen in three months," Buss said. "It's just a feeding frenzy."
The typical buyer for play sets is a couple whose first child has turned 2 and who have - or are expecting - a baby. Often, families buy an outdoor play set when they buy a home.
Parents have a wide range of choices, including basic, assemble-it-yourself sets at mass retailers such as Wal-Mart and Kmart and the mid-range at Toys "R" Us, home improvement chains and Sam's Club.
Five Wisconsin companies make play sets: Merry Time of Waukesha; Swing-N-Slide and Playstar, both of Janesville; Outback Play Centers Inc., the parent company for SugarIsland, in Sun Prairie; and Active Adventure Play Systems in Two Rivers.
All of them are duking it out on the showroom floor, where parents hear about the merits of wood and component materials; types of hardware; safety issues; and price.
Laurie Norman, a Whitefish Bay mother of two, said she and her husband considered Rainbow but ended up with an Active Adventure set for $2,100.
The do-it-yourself sets that Rainbow now offers compete with similar products sold at home improvement chains and Toys "R" Us. These sets are typically made of lighter weight wood beams and can be purchased for under $1,000. They appeal to people who are willing to do the work to assemble them.
Cost a big issue
Heather and Brian Festerling of Pewaukee tried to find a used set online, and they shopped at the places that deliver and assemble sets and at Toys "R" Us before buying one at Sam's Club for $1,100.
They hauled it home in their truck and are putting it together themselves.
The Festerlings are as happy with their choice as the Budeckis, who chose to spend more and get more service. The majority of shoppers are going the do-it-yourself route, manufacturers say, because of the price.
"It was tough to stomach," Todd Budecki said of the $5,000 cost of the Rainbow Monster 2. But he said he and his wife were sold on the quality of the Rainbow set.
Buyers of the bigger sets can recoup some of their investment by reselling them when their children outgrow them. Retailers who sold the original will move and set them up, for a fee.
Steffens, the Rainbow salesman, says price is the biggest stumbling block, despite Rainbow's status as the big gorilla of the play set industry.
"We fight price competition," he said. Rainbow's weapons in that battle are quality and service, including a home visit by a salesperson who will assess the site and make recommendations.
And so, as the selling season for play sets heads toward its last big month, the war goes on.
Even in an industry based on child's play, it's a jungle out there.
Outdoor play equipment is a critical part of raising every child's physical fitness level. From climbing to balance to raised heart rate.
Posted by: Outdoor Play Equipment | May 11, 2009 at 02:45 AM