The Village of Rhineland is close to completing a project at Stiers Memorial Park that will include a new pavilion, an ADA accessible playground with safety surfacing, sidewalks to accessible parking, storm water drainage and safety fencing along Highway 94.

Since June 30, volunteers and town residents have teamed up to work on the $250,000 project, which will also have a horseshoe pit and a sand volleyball court. Steve Wehrle, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, said the project will be completely finished as soon as a border is installed around the playground.

“It goes around the outside,” Wehrle said. “The mulch and everything will go up against it, so it will make a nice and neat looking deal.”

Three years ago, the Village of Rhineland received a $101,260 grant from the National Park Service through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to make improvements on the park.

Wehrle said Rhineland residents are anxious to see the project get completed. Residents had made plans on improving the park for over 10 years.

“I’m pretty excited,” Wehrle said. “I know everybody else is pretty excited. All of the kids in town can’t wait.”

Originally, construction on the project was going to start as early as spring of 2022 and was going to be finished by that fall, but plans got changed.

“COVID held us up a little bit there,” Wehrle said. “Other than that, it’s getting everybody together and getting the courage to start. Everything had to be pretty well exact and right before we fully conquered. It took us all a little time.”

Funds for the park project were raised from events such as Pullin’ In The Park, which has been held since 2017.

“It wasn’t until the last several years that we got a hold of the DNR funding,” Wehrle said. “They came up with some kind of program within the last three or four years and we got in on that.”