Englewood Recreation Center — Attraction in Englewood

I have many mixed feelings for this place. We were talking our kids all the time and time and they loved it. The playground is pretty much in the shade at all times from all the tall trees plus there is a canopy over the smaller kids area. Yes there is a smaller kids playground with baby, swings slides, rocking toys then about 50ft away there's the playground for the bigger kids with slides, swings, a rock climbing wall plus more. There's picnic tables to enjoy lunch at and clean bathrooms in the center of the park. There's also tennis courts, baseball field, and basketball court. There's also some work out equipment if you want to work out and a police training center is right there in the middle of it all. So it's a nice little park and clean for the most part. Well about a month or so ago we took the kids like we always did and ended up finding needles over by the dugouts. We didnt go for awhile because I would rather my kids not be around stuff like that even if it was a diabetics. Well the kids wanted to go to the park but we had to stay close to home as we had company arriving within the hour. So we decided to try this park out again. My husband and I walked the playground and the ball park before we allowed the kids to play and everything seemed fine. If you do go just check things out before letting your...

I love this playground for my 1 year old, it’s very shaded which is great! However there has been someone living at this park for several months, them living there in their vehicle isn’t the issue but them yelling profanities is.. today when we arrived and I got my son out of the car they immediately started talking very loudy so we could hear them that they hated children.. as if they were trying to direct that at us.. then the farther we got away from them the louder they would yell and say profound things as if they wanted to bother us. I held it together and didn’t let it ruin our time for my sons sake but it made me very uncomfortable to say the least and I am not sure I will return to this playground until they move out.. it is a shame the park has just been redone and it’s very nice but I don’t really want my son & I to hear people yelling, cussing & directing comments at us while we are just trying to play at the playground. It’s been awkward every time we go for the sole fact that they just are sitting there and we feel we are being watched but I haven’t let it bother me however today it really felt like they were trying to intimidate us...

Baseball, Tennis, Basketball, work out equipment, all in natural shade! I have friends that come from Charlotte County where there's newer bigger parks because the shade and breeze are awesome. The bathrooms and water fountain could definitely...