Last spring, BREC debuted its bear play structure at a landscape architect conference. At the time, they announced:

“These Mamma & Baby Bear 🐻 playground structures are coming to Baton Rouge just for you, and here’s your sneak peek! 💚

Earthscape Play in collaboration with Sasaki, developed the design and our team got to enjoy its debut at the American Society of Landscape Architects Conference this week. All of EBR will get to enjoy it when it is installed at its forever home - Greenwood Community Park. 🌲

The idea of using the bears as a centerpiece of the new adventure playground came from those of you who voted on the design features. The final design features handgrips for climbing, hiding spots, and a slide between the two wooden structures. The bears will sit atop a hill and the slide will travel down to the bottom of the hill.

The Mamma & Baby Bear is a symbol of our Southern Wilderness to the adventure playground and we all can’t wait to play on this awesome new structure. Stay tuned for more information on when you will get your chance to play 🐻”

This week, the Bears are being installed! They look even bigger in person, and are attached to a rope climbing structure and a huge slide. The new playscape will also include additional slide structures as well as some creative ways to access them.

All of the new equipment should be installed by the end of next week, but after that BREC will still need a few weeks to get all the drainage and landscaping in place before everything officially opens. Tentatively, they’re projecting about 6 weeks until completion, but of course, that is dependent on our temperamental Louisiana weather playing nicely.

The new play area is part of the 22 million dollar Zoo Revitalization Project. From what we’ve seen with their new Pygmy Hippo Area we are certain that you’ll enjoy all the great things to come to the BREC Zoo and Greenwood Community Park.