ESCONDIDO — Due to safety concerns, the city is removing the signature grapevine playground structure at Grape Day Park.
For 22 years, Vinehenge has served as a public art piece and playground next to the Escondido History Center in Grape Day Park.
Installed by Nature Works in 2002, the playground features a structure featuring oversized grapevines for children to climb on, a slide decorated with oversized grapes, benches shaped like grape leaves and faux rocks around the perimeter.
Vinehenge is a public art project with an interactive design that replaced the previous “Legacy” treehouse and climbing structure at Grape Day Park. Public art funding paid for the structure’s installation, which cost the city $167,000.
Over time, however, cracks began to form in the Vinehenge’s grapevine limbs, with the most recent appearing in early 2023. Today, there are approximately 54 cracks throughout the entire structure, and two sections are missing.
Vinehenge was officially closed and sectioned off permanently last summer after a safety inspection of the play structure found significant degradation of the metal substructure in the limbs designed to support each other and the overall structure.
“The overall integrity of the structure was severely compromised,” Escondido Park Manager Wayne Thames told City Council on Dec. 4.
Nature Works, the original artist and company behind Vinehenge, requested that the city donate the structure to the primate department at the San Diego Zoo once it is removed.
City staff will begin exploring playground alternatives to replace Vinehenge and carry on its legacy at Grape Day Park.
Councilmember Consuelo Martinez wants to see the new playground structure pay homage to the city’s agricultural history.
“This will be a great move forward with a safe new playground,” Martinez said. “I know children have been waiting.”
