A Northwest model shade shelter with an HR-36 clerestory roof, chord beams and custom rock surrounds is featured in Alamar, a new community in Avondale, Arizona. The variable roof pitches of the 24′ wide and 64′ long Northwest shade and its large roof openings provide unparalleled views of the nearby mountains and ventilation. The striking clerestory roof design creates a modern look with classic lines. The structure protects its occupants from the elements with its heavy-duty geometry and engineering with expert representation by the Arizona location of Exerplay.
Alamar is a 1,130-acre master-planned community located directly north of the Sierra Estrella Mountains. It is being developed in several phases that celebrate the natural beauty of the mountains which provide a framework for community health and wellness. The design consists of family-friendly and multi-generational neighborhoods, each carefully orchestrated with dozens of trails, vast amounts of open space, and more than 30 half-acre neighborhood parks with playgrounds, picnic tables, and shaded ramadas including Classic Recreation manufactured shade.
Pool-side Sierra shade models by Classic Recreation at Haymoon Park in the Alamar community.
The community parks include a 40-acre regional park built in partnership with the City of Avondale. It is expected to become one of Avondale’s most popular public venues for hosting large events, concerts, recreational competitions, company picnics, and popular programming. The new park features baseball/softball and multi-use fields, tennis, four pickleball courts, three playgrounds, a lake, splash pad, amphitheater, dog park, and picnic ramadas for everyone to enjoy. These ramadas include the clerestory roof Classic Recreation Northwest shade structure. The new park amenities will also include an outdoor fitness court providing visitors safe and free access to the outdoor gym to keep active and stay healthy. The park is truly designed to be the hub of Alamar’s social life.
An Orlando gable roof shade model manufactured by Classic Recreation with custom rock surrounds at Moonbeam Patch Park. This shelter provides an elegant seating area by the custom fireplace for enjoying the incredible views.
Each of Alamar’s 3 Community Parks range from 2-3 acres and serve as an extension of neighbor’s own homes and yards just beyond their doorsteps. Here, parents can catch up in the afternoons under shady, native tree canopies and comfortable structures to socialize while watching their children swing, play and connect with new friends. Each park has its own style and character including a variety of amenities such as game fields, barbecue pits, picnic tables, shade shelters, benches, and play equipment for young kids and their older siblings.
“Quality of life has always been a top priority for residents of Avondale, and that means places to recreate, gather, and be active. The city is proud to add Alamar Park to our recreational spaces in Avondale, situated adjacent to the newest community of Alamar.” said Avondale Mayor Kenn Weise.
Custom Trellis shade structure manufactured by Classic Recreation with one of a kind hand-bent round lattice at Stargaze Grove park in Alamar.
An authentic, yet modern interpretation of Avondale’s agrarian roots is blended into contemporary shapes in both architecture and naturally sculpted amenities. Community Parks are programmed with creative, modern nods to the local community farming heritage. Community programming serves as a natural complement where monthly farmer’s markets and picnics add to the neighborhood culture.
Trellis shade models are a highlight in Lucero, the newest village in the Estrella home community. One structure is a 29’8” x 30’ Trellis model with a standing seam roof. It has custom I-beam perimeter beams, tongue and groove sub-roof and masonry columns. Another Trellis is a 23’ x 26’ shelter also featuring custom I-beam perimeter beams and masonry columns. The Lucero home village is 617 acres with the Trellis sun shade helping to embrace the beauty of desert hillside living and big views offering painted sunsets alongside curvaceous trails.
These shade structures manufactured by Classic Recreation are features of the home village that caters to active, contemporary lifestyles. They were expertly installed by the Exerplay Arizona office.
Lucero is the newest village in the Estrella home community located in Goodyear Arizona. It is energized by a bike & hike shop, cafe, home information center, and the future Ladera Park. The overall Estrella by Newland master-planned community has 20,000 acres of mixed-use featuring more than 500 acres of parks and open space with more than 50 miles of paths and trails, and 72 acres of lakes for boating and catch-and-release fishing. It’s also home to residents clubs, basketball, volleyball, pickleball and tennis courts. The land use plan for Estrella calls for as many as 50,000 homes and about 1,600 acres of commercial space, with a multi-decade build-out.
Lucero is the first village in more than a decade, joining other Estrella villages. The second newly installed Trellis sun shade shown above is 23’ x 26’ with a black grey color powder coat frame and stone grey color roof.
The first Trellis pergola style shade model installed at Lucero shown again above is 29’8” x 30’ sporting a cool sierra tan roof color and terra brown color powder coat frame.
Judges for the 2020 Gold Nugget Awards named the Estrella by Newland community as an Award of Merit winner in its annual competition, which honors architectural design and planning excellence, and draws entries from throughout the United States and internationally. “Gold Nugget Award winners reflect our industry’s best, brightest and most innovative architects, planners and builder/developers,” – Lisa Parrish, judging chair and Gold Nugget ceremonies administrator.
Festival Fields Park features Colorado model structures for river shade and manufactured by Classic Recreation. These shade shelters accent the Avondale Arizona park’s fishing lake, dog park, splash park, play structures, skate park, play courts, ball fields, multi-use fields, restrooms and much more. Exerplay installed the shade structures along with splash pads, playgrounds and a maintenance building roof. The 20 x 40 Colorado model shelters feature granite gray powder coat with metallic champagne color curved corrugated roof.
The park recently celebrated a $19 million renovation with a 30-acre expansion in 2019 featuring the new river shade structures. “The Council and I are so pleased with the improvements at Festival Fields because we know how much this means to the families in our community. Whether you’re coming to skateboard or play pickleball, to take part in a sports league or enjoy the sunset over the lake, there’s something for every member of the family at Festival Fields – even our four-legged family members.” – Avondale Mayor Kenn Weise. The celebration event included activities at the park such as vendor booths, food, a DJ, entertainment, skateboarding and pump track, pickleball, basketball, fitness activities, as well as a fireworks display at the conclusion of the celebration.
Festival Fields Park, just southeast of Central Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road, runs along the Agua Fria River, which flows south and merges with the Gila River near the Phoenix Raceway. The park has long been planned as a pilot for the West Valley’s El Rio plan, which aims to add recreation and light development along the Gila River.
“We are grateful to the City Council for supporting quality of life programs at our city parks, and for funding these improvements that have made Festival Fields 2020’s Outstanding Facility of the Year.” – Bryan Hughes, Avondale’s Parks & Recreation Director.
An Orlando model metal shade shelter with tongue & groove sub-roof is featured at a Town Center Park in Utah. This 20′ x 30′ structure manufactured by Classic Recreation has a 10′ dormer roof on each side to accentuate its visual appeal. It is a central attraction at the J. Lynn Crane Park in Herriman Utah which is the realization of former Mayor Crane’s vision for a community gathering place where residents socialize and play. Along with the shade shelter, the park adjacent to city hall offers a bandstand, all-ability playground, pavilion, grass area, fire pits, gazebo, a history walk, an interactive river, splash pad, and ice ribbon.
The shade shelter at J. Lynn Crane Park and the nearby playground were installed by Sonntag Recreation LLC based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The park has already become an amazing space for city events, has a food truck event one evening per week, is consistently packed with families, and the ice ribbon is a big hit.
The J. Lynn Crane Park has received an Award of Excellence from ASLA Utah for unparalleled advancement of the profession of landscape architecture.
“This project exemplifies the value-added to public spaces when site specific strategies, historical context, community needs, and innovative solutions are at the heart of the design, and subsequently carried through construction. The creative year-round elements offer engaging and interactive features that will no doubt draw people into the site and in turn, highlight our profession’s value to the greater community for many years to come.”
— ASLA Awards Jury
J. Lynn Crane Park in the Herriman Towne Center was officially dedicated in the name of James Lynn Crane as a memento of appreciation for his service by the Herriman City Council. J. Lynn Crane worked tirelessly to see Herriman incorporated and served as the first Mayor of Herriman City from 1999-2010. He passed away in 2018 with his many friends and relatives mourning his loss. The park is adjacent to the city hall complex which includes all city offices, courts and unified police offices.
Several attractive shade structures are featured in a luxury master-planned community that some call the “New Old-Home Neighborhood” because of its hometown charm and quaint neighborhood feel. The first featured home community shade structure is a Scottsdale model with custom lattice ornamentation, triple columns and standing-seam roof with a poolside location. It is a popular efficient design with a 2 tier gazebo style facilitating a pleasant airflow on those warm summer days. Manufactured by Classic Recreation, the Scottsdale model is easily dressed up with multiple columns and ornamentation as can be seen in the first photo.
The second featured shade shelter is a Dallas model with custom cupola, picket ornamentation, standing-seam roof and heavy duty railing. The Dallas shade model from Classic recalls an earlier era, with clean and modern lines. It is available with variable-height roof tiers, and with an optional vented New England-style cupola as shown below at the home community.
The high quality and luxury master-planned community that features the shade shelters is known as Mulberry and located in Mesa, Arizona. Long known as one of the nation’s largest bedroom communities, Mesa in recent years has started attracting a more diverse mix of development projects ranging from office parks to industrial complexes and, of course, more quality and luxury neighborhoods.
More featured shade shelters in the community are smaller Scottsdale models installed by the pool to shade visitors. These are two tiered gazebo style and some of the structures manufactured by Classic are shown in the photo below.
The Mulberry community was built in Arizona by Blandford Homes with 550 homes and tree-lined streets. The houses have front porches facing the street instead of garages to promote a sense of community within the neighborhood. The community is located on 130 acres in east Mesa near Desert Ridge High School. Home sizes range from 1,600 square feet to just under 4,000 square feet, with prices originally starting in the $200,000s. The first homes opened in early 2015. The home community shade structure is located along the north site of Guadalupe Road between Crismon and Signal Butte roads.
Another Scottsdale model with the lattice ornamentation installed in the community is shown below providing two tier shade for picnic tables at a playground park in the community.
Trellis model shade structures are included in greenbelt parks inside the community to provide shelter at picnic and seating benches. As shown below, the Trellis model creates a feeling of openness and light where space is more important than shade. These structures also manufactured by Classic feature roof members of tubular steel and finished in powder coat.
To read a news article about the development, home community shade structure, and two tier gazebo roof from Arizona Republic Newspaper – click here.
Sky at Chandler Airpark in Arizona is a luxury community that boasts features to make residents proud to call it home. It offers a resort-inspired amenities package including pool shade structures and modern apartment features. Beyond the homes themselves, the property boasts an impressive array of amenities for residents, including: two pools and spas with private cabanas that can be enjoyed from the pool area and from private patio and balcony views. The pool shade structures are Charleston models manufactured by Classic Recreation. These resort-style poolside ramadas keep residents and visitors cool while they enjoy Gas BBQs, Fireplaces, Wet Bars, HDTVs and WiFi. These are comfortable, spacious, and airy shade structures with tubular steel columns and frame, and a versatile hexagon shape. The shade structures were specified and installed complements of Exerplay, Inc. and local contractors.
In 2018 Mayor Kevin Hartke of Chandler, the development team, and other Arizona civic and business leaders participated in a VIP reception to celebrate the ribbon cutting of the 779,337-square-foot property featuring 11 buildings and 504 total apartment homes. The participants were proud of every detail down to the lighting in homes that has been optimized to enhance resident’s experience.
“It is both very exciting and highly rewarding to be a part of a trend-setting development like Sky at Chandler Airpark which is already being viewed by the industry as a first-in-class asset with an award-winning appeal to the market,” said Foursite construction manager Nicklas J.E. Roe.
Sky at Chandler Airpark business managers knew how important amenities are to popular luxury apartment communities, which is why they went the extra mile to make theirs stand out. From the tanning pool and lighted sand volleyball court, to the outdoor fireplace, Sky focused on providing residents with unique spaces to relax and unwind. These unique spaces include entertainment gazebos throughout the property, state-of-the-art fitness center, virtual on-demand yoga, Pilates and spin programs, indoor basketball and racquetball courts, and a dog park and pet washing station.
The Strand @ Gilbert is a 25-acre sports-based water park that is a part of Gilbert Arizona’s new Regional Park. This park features ramada shade structures manufactured by Classic Recreation. The park amenities include three lagoons for cable-based wakeboarding and skiing, surfing, kayaking, paddle boarding, and a floating obstacle course, as well as restaurants, a beach, a swimming area, and a retail store.
There are also six swings at the park, picnic areas, bathrooms, and a lighted walkway. It could take another 16-24 months to completely build out all of the water park’s features.
The Classic Northwest model ramada shade structures at the new Gilbert Regional Park.
“Mostly its a place for the community. It’s a community asset; it’s for the residents of Gilbert and the surrounding areas,” said John McLaughlin, CEO of Strand Resorts. “We’re not a typical water park with slides or rides. We’re more on the skills side so the more you surf the better you get. The more quality waves you can get, the faster you’re going to progress.”
“The surf lake (the cable-based skills course) is an engineering masterpiece,” he said. “It’s extremely complicated engineering and creating the swells, causing the waves to do what they do…”
“We spent a lot of time working with groups and community reach-out so that no matter what you’re ability level is, you can use every aspect of this park, make it to the top of the mountain and make it down,” said Recreation Director Robert Carmona. “There are wide walkways to accommodate wheelchairs, specialty swings on the zipline and in the swing areas, and cushioned ground throughout the play area.”
“Every time you go down, there are different ways to go back up. And within ‘The Mountain’ there are a lot of different play features, even climbing features, to get up and explore. Really the idea behind it is to be able to explore every time you come to the park. That each time you come to the playground you’re going to have a different experience and be able to use it in a different way than you used it before,” Carmona said.
The Classic Northwest model has a striking clerestory design creating a modern look with classic lines. The variable roof pitch of the shade and the large opening provide unparalleled ventilation. The Northwest structure protects park occupants from the elements with its heavy-duty engineering and geometry.
A shade shelter for the park, with an interesting custom curved crescent shape is shown here. This curved Orlando model is located at the Bartley Ranch Park in Reno, Nevada.
This structure is quite eye-catching in a park environment. It has a custom cupola, 24-gauge HR-36 steel roof and a powder coated finish. At this park it was surface mount and installed with custom footings to accommodate the slope. The park has a small matching shed for storage nearby.
The Town of Prescott Valley Arts and Culture Commission held a ribbon cutting ceremony and premiere performances on the vast green lawns of the Civic Center campus at the newly improved amphitheater, “Theater on the Green.” This gala grand opening event took place from in 2015 at the Prescott Valley Civic Center.
The celebration officially launched the new covered stage built and installed by Classic Recreation Systems. The covered metal stage structure is at the Civic Center Amphitheater and this grand opening was the first of many events to be held.
The Grand Opening was attended by local dignitaries and esteemed guests from the Quad-City area. Live music and entertainment was provided by the Bradshaw Mountain High School Jazz Band, Mile High Comedy Theater and Yavapai College Jazz Band.
This free public event on the rolling lawns of the Civic Center Campus provided plenty of free parking and space to set lawn chairs and blankets for an open air evening of festivities. Dinner and free entertainment were enjoyed with an unobstructed view of the mountains and sunsets from the Civic Center amphitheater.
Box Dinners (chicken, beef or vegetarian wraps, pasta salad and lemon bars) were available for pre-purchase. Snacks and refreshments were available onsite from the Bradshaw Mountain Band Boosters.
Visit the Quad Cities’ newest outdoor venue with an atmosphere of class, comfort, taste and distinction. Enjoy the covered theater proudly manufactured by Classic Recreation. ”We look forward to the many events, celebrations and memories to come” said Brian Witty, Director of Parks and Recreation. Please contact the Town of Prescott Valley for additional information.
Many Colleges, Universities and other organizations are revising their smoking and tobacco use policies. This includes Yavapai College which has a new official policy that goes into effect in Aug. 2016.
The Yavapai College policy allows people to smoke on campuses within a limited number of designated outdoor areas, according to a news release. Many of these areas are already constructed, marked with signage and furnished with tobacco product waste receptacles.
Classic Recreation supplied the smoking shelter to Yavapai College. It is a durable powder-coated quality metal structure that will withstand the outdoor environment and provide protection and comfort for the smokers.
At Yavapai College, smoking includes, but is not limited to: carrying a lighted or smoldering cigarette, cigar, pipe and inhaling e-cigarettes or vaporizers. Smokeless tobacco products such as snuff and chew are also prohibited within college vehicles, buildings and residence halls, and within 25 feet of building entries, doors, windows and air vents. No such restrictions have yet been placed on what someone may do inside their personal vehicle.
Yavapai College President Dr. Penny Wills said the 25-foot law set by the state of Arizona was simply not working and that stricter measures had to be taken to ensure healthy campus environments for those not wishing to be exposed to potentially harmful substances. “This isn’t a power move,” Wills said in February. “We’re just looking after the health and wellbeing of our students and employees.”
After initial opposition, since the announcement was made that Yavapai College would compromise by only restricting smoking or tobacco use to certain areas, there hasn’t been much push back. The quality shade structures from Classic also added to a more acceptable environment for a solution allowing people to smoke. The shelter installation at Yavapai College can be seen in the photo below.
“For the mass majority, I think they believe it’s about time we took action on this,” the college’s Human Resources Director, Monica Belknap, said. “During the busy season, there have just been tons of students smoking their little e-cigarettes and whatnot.”