With grants and donations in hand, members of the Westport Recreation Department will soon install a modern, nautical-themed playground to replace the aging structure near the Town Hall Annex built three decades ago, and they're in the planning stages to build a second complex.

The new Annex playground will likely go up in mid-June, and the land will be cleared later this month or in early June.

The coming work has been a long time coming, the recreation department's Dana Stewart said earlier this year. Though it holds a place in many Westporters' hearts, the old playground has long since shown its age. The new one will be handicap-accessible, Stewart said, and there is a hope that it will itself be much loved and used, as the old one has been. A second playground, which would replace the Bicentennial Playground, is also in the works.

Voters approved $350,000 in funding at last year's Town Meeting for the recreation department initiative, through a Community Preservation grant. The effort was also aided by a $500,000 grant from an anonymous private foundation.

Any remaining funds left over from the Annex project are expected to be allocated to the Bicentennial Playground effort.