By Morgan Pilz, Staff Writer

Heavy equipment as tourist attraction?

(Feb. 20, 2020) A construction site tourist attraction is seeking a potential new location in Worcester County, and approached the Berlin Planning Commission on Wednesday, Feb. 12, regarding a concept plan to plan the site on Evans Road.

The construction tourism attraction Heavy Metal Playground would offer guests an opportunity to control heavy machinery like excavators and bulldozers.

Heavy Metal Playground is located in Boonsboro, Maryland, and has three business categories including entertainment, corporate events and certifying heavy equipment training. The entertainment portion of the business would allow people to safely operate and play with heavy equipment like excavators and forklifts.

The company has offered events for corporations including Google, Amazon, Volvo, Cisco and other organizations as well as nonprofits like Wounded Warriors and American Cancer Society. In addition, it also offers opportunities for the community to allow underprivileged adults and teenagers, the homeless and veterans gain certification in order to pursue a new career for themselves.

The business offers 15 to 45-minute sessions to work with the machinery in a safe, controlled environment like digging holes or playing the company’s game of “heavy metal basketball or football.” Guests as young as

Owner Mark Stevanus decided to consider adding a new location in either Berlin or near Ocean City because of his interest in the area.

“I’ve always wanted to come down to this area,” Stevanus said. “I’ve actually done some business down this way in the Ocean City area and this concept came up and working with [a local organization] that said it would be a great idea to come down here for tourism. This opportunity came up in Berlin.”

One of the issues Advisor George Merritt noted during the meeting would be concerns about noise, stating that the average vacuum cleaner is heard at 80 decibels and a lawnmower is around 90 decibels, claiming the machinery would be within that sound range.

The facility would be open for use every day, with potential hours being from noon to 8 p.m.

This was considered a problem for Board member John Barrett, who lives across from the concept area, citing noise concerns.

“It’s a terrible location,” Barrett said. “It’s a residential area … I live right there; I am right across from the field.”

Several audience members and Board member Pete Cosby also voiced their concerns over potential noise issues, though both Merritt and Stevanus want to assure the public that the park would not be overly noisy and be limited to only three or four machines working at any given time.

Merritt offered to provide results from sound engineers or even a demonstration to show that the site would not be as loud as residents are concerned. However, as the machinery is rented or leased, the company cannot install mufflers to reduce the noise, as was suggested by a member of the crowd.

“We want to make sure this is not an issue,” Stevanus said. “We do not want to be disruptive.”

Stevanus hopes to place his business in Berlin with the hopes of driving tourism, with his company being able to offer coupons and other discounts to local businesses (like he has done in his Boonsboro location).

The Planning Commission will consider his proposal and get back to a more definite decision by the following monthly meeting.