Most playgrounds are ordered from a catalogue. This one was designed after asking children what they wanted, funded partly by donations, and assembled by more than four thousand people over a long weekend.
The All-Together Playground sits at Orem City Center Park, on the north side of the city park and arboretum, next to the Orem Public Library. It was Utah County's first all-abilities playground, and nearly a decade after opening it remains one of the most-used pieces of public space in the valley.
One clarification before anything else, because the searches get this wrong constantly: it is in Orem. Families across the county use it and half of them remember it as being in Provo. It is not.
The short version
A large, fully fenced, all-abilities community-built playground at Orem City Center Park. Free. Poured safety surfacing, ramps, ziplines, a Tot Lot for under-fives, accessible restrooms with an adult-size changing table. Built in 2016 by over 4,100 volunteers. Short on shade.
How it came to exist
The origin is unusually well documented and worth telling properly, because it explains the design.
Orem City was consulting the public about recreational improvements and put the question out through social media. Two mothers — whose daughters used wheelchairs — proposed an all-abilities playground, on the straightforward grounds that there was nowhere locally their children could actually play.
The city pledged $350,000, and the community raised the remainder. Local businesses donated materials and labor. As the design developed, planners went to local elementary school pupils and asked what they wanted in a park.
Then, over roughly six and a half days in the autumn of 2016, more than 4,100 volunteers built it under the supervision of Leathers & Associates, a firm that specializes in community-build playgrounds.
What the children asked for, and got
This is the detail that makes the playground what it is. Asked what they wanted, local children requested a pirate ship, a space ship and a castle. All three were built.
The designers then layered in Orem's own history: a clock tower, a train, and a mammoth-themed slide — the mammoth being a nod to the region's palaeontological record, which Thanksgiving Point up the road makes rather more of.
The overall form invokes the Wasatch peaks that stand behind the site. It is a playground with an argument in it, which is not something you can say about most municipal play equipment.
What is actually there
The playground splits into two areas.
The main area is large, with a substantial central structure — accounts describe a big climbing mountain with four slides coming down it and a rock wall on the far side. Underneath the structures is usable play space, which children reliably discover and adults reliably forget about.
There are two ziplines: one with a seat that a child can be strapped into, and one that can be ridden standing or sitting. That pairing is deliberate — it means a child who cannot hold on independently still gets a zipline ride rather than watching one.
The Tot Lot is a smaller separate area for under-fives.
The surfacing, which is the real accessibility story
The single most important design decision is the ground.
Standard playgrounds use woodchips or bark, which are cheap, effective at cushioning falls, and completely impassable in a wheelchair. The All-Together Playground uses a smooth poured surface throughout, with ramps onto the structures.
That is what "all-abilities" means in practice, and it is why the phrase is not interchangeable with "has an accessible swing." A child using a wheelchair can move through the whole playground and get onto the equipment, rather than being parked at the edge next to one designated item.
The restrooms were built to match: wheelchair-accessible, with an adult-size changing table — a facility that is rare, that older children and adults with disabilities genuinely need, and that most public parks simply do not provide.
The key, and why to call ahead
Here is the practical detail that will save someone a wasted trip.
Family accounts describe a ride designed for children who use wheelchairs which requires a key obtained from the city to operate. If that specific piece of equipment is the reason you are making the journey, contact Orem City before you go rather than arriving and hoping someone can help.
This is not unusual for specialized accessible equipment — keys prevent misuse and damage — but it is poorly signposted, and it is the kind of thing a local guide exists to tell you.
Fencing, and why parents care so much about it
The playground is fully fenced. In the reviews, this comes up almost as often as the equipment does.
For families with a child who runs — whether because of autism, ADHD, or simply being three — a fully enclosed playground of this size changes the experience completely. It is the difference between supervising and chasing. Several families describe driving from other cities specifically because of it.
The fence posts are personalized, carrying the names of donors and supporters from the original build. It is a small thing and people notice it.
Shade, and the summer problem
The most consistent criticism is the lack of shade.
The site is open, the surfacing absorbs heat, and Utah County summers are hot and high-altitude. In July and August, a mid-afternoon visit is genuinely uncomfortable and the poured surface gets warm.
The workable answer is timing. Mornings before about eleven, and evenings after about six, are pleasant through the summer. Bring water regardless; the playground is not shaded enough to skip it.
Location, parking and what is next door
City Center Park sits centrally in Orem, and the playground is on its north side by the arboretum.
Parking is described as ample. The Orem Public Library is immediately adjacent, which makes an excellent pairing — playground until children overheat, library to cool down and reset. Restaurants and shopping are a short drive on State Street and University Parkway.
Our best parks in Provo and things to do in Orem guides cover what else is nearby.
The known problems, stated plainly
A public playground approaching a decade of intensive use will show wear, and this one does.
Reviewers report restrooms locked at times, drainage issues in parts of the site after wet weather, and some of the interactive musical elements not working. One reviewer noted the musical pieces had been broken often enough that it was hard to tell what they were supposed to be.
None of this is scandalous. It is what happens to heavily-used community infrastructure, and it is a maintenance question for the city rather than a design failure. But if you are driving forty minutes, it is better to know.
The other all-abilities parks nearby
The All-Together Playground was first in the county and it is no longer alone, which is the best possible outcome for the families who campaigned for it.
Comparable destinations elsewhere in Utah Valley include a fully enclosed all-abilities park in Spanish Fork with a sensory garden, an accessible mountain ramp, a wheelchair-accessible swing and harness zipline seats, and a large aviation-themed all-abilities park in Lehi with a splash pad, sensory garden and shaded play areas.
If shade or a splash pad matters most to you, those are worth considering. If fencing and central location matter most, Orem remains the strongest option.
The naming confusion
Both All-Together Playground and All Together Playground appear in official and unofficial use, including on city materials, and the hyphen drifts between them.
More consequentially, the park is widely searched as a Provo playground. It draws from Provo, from Lindon and Vineyard, and from further south — but the funding, the land, the volunteers and the city are Orem's, and searching for it as an Orem park returns better results.
Who this suits
It suits families with a wide age spread, because the Tot Lot and the main structures genuinely serve different ages. It suits families with a child who uses a wheelchair or has a disability, which was the founding purpose and remains its distinguishing feature. And it suits any parent who wants a fenced playground and has spent time chasing a toddler across an unfenced one.
It suits you less well on a hot summer afternoon, or if you need guaranteed restroom access, both of which are matters of timing rather than of the park itself.
What it says about how public space gets made
The most interesting thing about this playground is not any piece of equipment. It is the process: a city asked, two parents answered, children were consulted on the design, businesses donated, and four thousand people showed up with tools.
That is an unusual way to build public infrastructure and it produced something that a procurement process would not have. The pirate ship exists because children asked for a pirate ship. The mammoth slide exists because someone thought local history should be in there.
Nearly a decade on, that origin is still legible in the thing itself, which is the best case for building anything this way.
Why community-build playgrounds are different
Leathers & Associates, the firm that supervised the build, specializes in a particular model: the community-build playground, where a professional design and construction plan is executed largely by volunteers over a compressed period.
The model produces different results from a catalogue install. Structures tend to be wooden, layered and idiosyncratic rather than modular. Designs incorporate local references because local people designed them. And the finished playground carries a level of community ownership that a contractor-built park does not.
The trade-off is maintenance. Complex custom structures are harder and more expensive to repair than standardized equipment, which is part of why some interactive elements at ageing community-build playgrounds stop working.
That is the honest ledger on this kind of park: more character, more upkeep.
What to bring
Water, and more than you think in summer. Sun cover — hats and sunscreen — because the shade is limited. A change of clothes if the weather is wet, since drainage in parts of the site is imperfect.
If you are relying on the restrooms, have a backup plan; reviewers report them locked at times. The Orem Public Library next door is the obvious fallback during its opening hours.
For a longer visit, the large lawn areas at City Center Park make a picnic straightforward, and there is enough space that a family can spread out away from the busiest structures.
Best times to visit
Weekday mornings during term time are the quietest by a wide margin. After-school hours and weekends are busy, and summer afternoons combine the crowds with the heat.
Evening visits in summer are genuinely pleasant — the surfacing cools, the light is good, and the park empties out after dinner.
The playground is at its worst on a hot Saturday afternoon in July, which is unfortunately when most first-time visitors try it.
Combining it with the library
The adjacency to the Orem Public Library is the underrated feature of this site and the reason it works as a longer outing rather than a forty-minute stop.
The pattern that works: playground first while energy is high, library afterwards to cool down, read and reset. In summer this converts an unbearable afternoon into a manageable one, and in winter it means the trip is still worth making when the playground is too cold for long.
Our things to do in Orem guide covers what else is within walking distance of the park.
The vocabulary, and why it matters
Two phrases get used interchangeably and mean different things.
Accessible usually means a facility meets a legal minimum — a ramp exists, a route is navigable. All-abilities or inclusive means the design starts from the assumption that disabled children will use it alongside everyone else, and builds accordingly.
The difference is visible here. An accessible playground might add one adapted swing at the edge of a woodchip field. This one replaced the field.
That distinction is worth carrying into any playground search, because marketing uses both words loosely and only one of them predicts whether your child can actually play.
For visitors from outside Orem
If you are driving in from Provo, Springville, Lehi or further, City Center Park is straightforward to reach and centrally located in Orem rather than tucked into a residential edge.
Combine it with the library next door, and with lunch on State Street or University Parkway a short drive away. It makes an easy half-day rather than a stop, which justifies the trip from further out.
Parking and arrival
City Center Park has its own parking, described consistently as ample, and the playground sits on the north side near the library. Arrival is straightforward and does not involve street parking in a residential area, which is a common frustration at other Utah County parks.
For families arriving with mobility equipment, parking close to the north side puts you nearest the playground entrance and the accessible restrooms. It is worth circling once to get that rather than taking the first space you see at the far end of the lot.
Nearby food and making a day of it
State Street and University Parkway are both a short drive and carry the full range of Utah County eating, from quick-service to sit-down. For families the practical constraint after a hot morning at an unshaded playground is somewhere with air conditioning and fast service rather than anywhere ambitious.
Our things to do in Orem guide covers what else pairs with a morning here, and our family activities in Utah Valley page covers the wider county for anyone building a full day around it.
The bottom line
The All-Together Playground is free, fenced, genuinely accessible, and built by the community that uses it. It is the best playground in Utah County for a family with mixed ages or mixed abilities.
Go in the morning or the evening, bring water and sun cover, and if you need the key, call the city first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the All-Together Playground?
Is it free?
What does all-abilities actually mean here?
Is there equipment that needs a key?
Is it fenced?
Who built it?
Is there a separate area for toddlers?
What are the known drawbacks?