CRANBERRY TWP — Renovations and upgrades to the water park at North Boundary Park were put on hold last week after bids for the $1.7 million project came in too high.

However, township officials are scaling down the project and still will undertake about $98,000 worth of upgrades this year.

Pete Geis, director of the township's parks and recreation department, said Monday that the project will be split in to two phases, with the second phase taking place next year and being larger than the first phase.

Geis said the first phase will include minor improvements such as enhancing the lighting system in the bathrooms, installing a new ventilation system in the first-aid station and adding padded flooring in a party room.

“There's not much of a wow factor with these improvements but they will attend to some of the needs people expressed in the survey,” Geis said, adding that township officials recently solicited input from residents on what they'd like to see done at the park.

The bigger part of the project in phase two will include a resurfacing of the pool, expansion of the zero-depth entry pool, a new filtration system and the addition of a climbing wall and dump bucket in the pool.

The township supervisors sent the original project out for bid in June and didn't get any bids that met the estimated cost.

That's why the supervisors last week agreed to scale back the renovations and split them into two phases.

The $98,000 in renovations of phase one will be completed during the water park's offseason this year.