The recreational area at the corner of West Jackson and Glover Streets, now known as Whitfield Park, is getting an upgrade.

On most clear, sunny days a crowd of people can be found at the picnic tables enjoying a leisurely game of dominoes. But, when Mother Nature was not cooperative, the games came to a halt.

By the end of this week, rain will no longer be a factor. Demopolis Parks and Recreation Director Mark Pettus said the city should have a new pavilion in place to host the games by Thursday.

“We should have the roof up by Wednesday or Thursday,” Pettus said. “We have the roof down there, we just need to get it on.”

The idea for the pavilion, Pettus said, stemmed from a similar structure at the North City Landing.

“We had done a pavilion down at the river landing a while back for the barbecue cook-off teams a few years ago,” Pettus said. “A lot of people enjoyed using it to get out of the sun and relax. We felt like we could do something like that for this area too.”

Whitfield Park, Pettus said, is an area that many people have always enjoyed. But recently, the numbers were growing. If the weather turned bad, Pettus said, there was nowhere for them to go.

“There is always a crowd of people out at Whitfield Park,” Pettus said. “A lot of people like to go down there and play dominoes, but there wasn’t really a place for them to get in out of the rain. The crowd kept growing and we knew we needed to give them a better place.”

When completed, the new pavilion will also be equipped with picnic tables, which should make it a more than suitable place for people to enjoy.

The new structure, Pettus said, was just an example of how the Park and Recreation Department works to make city parks a fun place for citizens to enjoy.

“We always try to watch the use of our parks and keep their needs in mind,” Pettus said. “We want to take care of our parks and the people that use them so they can have fun.”