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Whither the Southpoint Play Area?
It's gone. Been gone for a couple of weeks, management tells me. But a new one should be ready to open Dec. 19 near JCPenneys.
Patrick Anderson, senior general manager at The Streets at Southpoint in Durham, tells me that the old play area was past its useful life and needed to be replaced. It's been next to the food court since the mall opened in 2002.
The new play area will be smaller than the old one and geared towards toddlers and preschoolers, Anderson said.
"There were some larger pieces and we had experienced some issues with larger kids in there," he said.
The new one will be wider with seating for parents around it, he said.
What's the reason for the move out of the food court? Anderson's reponse was a little cryptic: "long-range strategic planning purpose."
I'm not a frequent shopper at Southpoint, but the last time I was there I noticed a lot of cracks in the pieces and my daughter had some problems with some big kids - boys 9 -or 10-years-old nearly running over her as they played tag. (But, in their defense, she was following them around).
Sarah Lindenfeld Hall
Sarah is in charge of content for TriangleMom2Mom.com and writes about family-friendly events, local moms groups and other topics for the site.
She lives in Raleigh with her husband and three-year-old daughter. Sarah has written for newspapers since she was a teenager living in snowy Central New York. After graduating from the University of Virginia, she traipsed a bit around Europe and Mount Airy, N.C., before settling down in the Triangle. She moved here in 1999 to take a job with The News & Observer. She once aspired to play flute professionally. More recently, her daughter started crying when she played it.
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Comments
I was never a big fan of that play area. It's nice enough, but it was filled with a lot of older kids. If I was shopping just with Maya, 2, then I would avoid it. If my 4-year-old son is with us, I'd usually make a stop there, but only for a short time. Glad to here management knew there were some problems with it.