Modern parents are busy, constantly juggling parenting, career and personal goals. It can be difficult to find time for exercise and fitness. Aware of this struggle, as well as the ongoing rise in obesity rates, many park directors are bringing fitness to parents and other patrons, enabling them to get a good workout for free while their kids play nearby.

Whether you're outfitting a pool, a park or a sports field, you want to be sure to provide patrons a way to get out of the sun. Shade structures can provide comfort and safety, as well as creating a pleasing aesthetic for your site.

A site that features clean, aesthetically pleasing restrooms is more comfortable for visitors, ensuring they'll stay longer and come back again. Whether your park is located in an urban setting or a rural area, you can find premanufactured concrete restroom structures that are quick and simple to install, and that fit in beautifully to the surrounding landscape.

Maintaining sports fields and other turfgrass requires careful attention. In addition to ensuring your fields are getting enough water, you also need to control weeds. Most facilities rely on herbicides to keep weeds off the field, and need effective solutions.

Most people are well aware of the dangers of too much sun exposure. The sun's harmful UV rays are the leading cause of skin cancer, and more people are finding ways to protect themselves and their children by using sunscreen and looking for shady places to play.

Recreation, sports and fitness facilities present unique challenges to the folks who run them every day. Some of those challenges are minor and relatively simple to fix, while others are big problems that require big investments.

If you want to ensure success for a new park, program or facility, it’s important to begin with community input. In fact, the better you are at getting your community involved up front in the planning process, the more likely your new facility will see success.

Welcome to our annual Problem-Solver Idea Book.

Packed with scores of ideas, this reference tool was designed to help you tackle your most persistent and universal challenges, covering all the big basic questions. Consider it an industry guidebook of sorts, chock full of straightforward problem-solving tips.

In Lake Placid, N.Y., home to the 1980 Winter Olympics, a ski lodge was recently given a boost, when a fabric building was added to help ease congestion.

When people come to the park, they expect the amenities they enjoy to be safe for their use. Here, an expert in splash play takes a closer look at how to design spraygrounds safely.