The Best Seats
In The House

Located around 30km outside of downtown Toronto, one of our recent projects took us to the beautiful city of Markham, a part of the Greater Toronto Area. As the largest city in the York Region, Markham is home to close to 400,000 residents and is home to a number of scenic pathways and outdoor spaces.

With a revitalization project in the works, our team was contacted to help ensure the safety of residents in the area at Morgan Park, one of the city’s most popular recreational spaces. As part of the revitalization, the city undertook a massive renovation to the park’s pool and surrounding area. In addition to the pool, the park is now home to a new children’s playground as well as sports fields such as baseball diamonds.

During the design phase, it was immediately apparent that the new playground scheduled for construction was potentially in harm’s way from the big bats playing under the lights of the community baseball fields.

Located just beyond the outfield fences, the risk of balls flying out of the park and into the playground was taken into consideration and was where we got our start on the project. With the interest of keeping all balls in play and out of the playground, our team was tasked with designing a solution to keep all residents and park-goers safe.

When requiring a safety netting barrier of this size, the first item of business is ensuring the system in anchored with something strong enough to withstand the test of time. In this case (and most others), utility poles are the best solution. Delivered directly by the utility authorities, and installed with the help from our installation team, the following step was to string the customized netting safely.

After a day or two in scissor lifts, our team was able to secure and test the safety of the newly installed netting barrier. Following a review by key municipal officials, the project was given the go-ahead and now stands to keep deep hits in the field and those on the play structures safe.