The Round Rock City Council honored major donors of the Play for All Abilities Park—a place for special-needs children to play and learn—at the Jan. 12 council meeting.

Donors include Nyle Maxwell Family Dealerships, Wag-a-Bag, Seton Medical Center Williamson and H-E-B, each of which donated $25,000 toward the making of the park. The fifth major donor is Chasco Constructors, which donated construction services to help build the park.

"We've known there's been a great need in the community for this project. And it's something that the whole community gets behind," Parks Development Manager David Buzzell said. "There really is not another outside place like this they [special needs children] can go to locally, or in our region, really."

Major donor businesses allowed the City of Round Rock to include replicas of their businesses in the Village Pod section of the Play for All Abilities Park designs.

Buzzell said the purpose is to allow children to develop life skills in a park setting that will include a Nyle Maxwell auto dealership, a Wag-A-Bag convenience store with a gas station pump, a Seton Medical Center facility and an H-E-B grocery store.

He said children will be exposed to a variety of life skills such as learning to exchange money at Wag-A-Bag or building an awareness of nutrition at the Seton Medical Center facility.

"It's going to be a miniature city if you will," Buzzell explained.

The park is expected to break ground in mid or late February.

Plans for the park began when members of local civic clubs joined forces and formed the Play for All Committee and the nonprofit Play for All.

The foundation raised more than $100,000 for the project. The City of Round Rock authorized $500,000 be used toward making the park.

Funding for the million-dollar facility was also made possible with community support, grants, in-kind donations and sponsorships from local businesses.

"Each one of us who participated in this has a sense of corporate responsibility to our community," said Nyle Maxwell, owner of Nyle Maxwell Family Dealerships. "This park is going to allow all children to enjoy the park. It will help build a better community and a better quality of life."

The park will include several pods designed to help all children develop life skills, including a retreat pod, a sensory pod-sand box, rock band pod, rolling hill/performance lawn, sensory pod, all abilities playscape, all ability swings and a Brushy Creek Village life skills area.

The park will be 51,000 square feet in size once completed and is located at 151 N. A.W. Grimes Blvd.