A Salt Lake City park was purring on Monday afternoon, as kids rushed to play on its upgraded two-story playground.

The massive bronze cats that live at the neighborhood green space enjoyed the company of families once again after months of having construction equipment in their space.

The city’s Public Lands Department formally reopened Steenblik Park in the Rose Park neighborhood to residents on Monday after a summer face-lift.

“It’s nice. I mean, they seem to be having fun,” neighbor Alexis Bytendorp said of the three kids she brought to the reopening. “It’s definitely an upgrade from the last park that they had here.”

Bytendorp lives nearby and said that when she’s watching the trio of children, she’ll bring them to the green space near 800 North and American Beauty Drive.

The park — which is named for Joseph F. Steenblik, an early community builder in this part of Salt Lake City — is the first to be upgraded with funds from 2022’s voter-approved parks bond. A shade structure, toddler play area and new native plants and trees now welcome parkgoers alongside the large playground.

The four kid-size bronze cats, modeled on those that used to live around the Steenblik Dairy on the west side, remain on watch, too.

The cats aren’t the only curious thing about this park: The new playground features elements — like some of the posts that hold it up — that were salvaged from the old, smaller playground.

“We’ve designed it in a way [that] we essentially made a much larger playground at a much better cost,” Public Lands Deputy Director Tyler Murdock said. “I don’t think I’ve been involved in a project where we’ve done that type of salvaging old materials to repurpose.”

To keep the project under $700,000 and make the changes that residents wanted to see, like the separate toddler play area, Murdock said the department had to get creative.

Preserving the cats was also a priority because “art has a unique way” of connecting people to a place “that maybe a playground doesn’t,” he said.

Other new playgrounds and upgraded parks are on the way citywide, some of which will have their own pieces of distinctive art. Donner Park at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, which will reopen on Oct. 1, has its own new installation. The redone Rotary Playground in Liberty Park, set to open Oct. 26, will have a new natural feel with wooden fixtures

Downtown’s centerpiece green space, Pioneer Park, will cap the fall’s reopenings on Nov. 13 with its new wavy pavilion and all-ages playground.