Cranberry to move forward with plans for Community Park North
CRANBERRY TWP — Cranberry Township’s board of supervisors moved forward with its plans to expand and enhance its oldest community park. At their monthly meeting on Thursday, Nov. 2, the board gave engineering firm Herbert, Rowland, & Grubic the green light to begin the design process for the Community Park North project.
According to a preliminary timeline, the township expects to start soliciting bids and awarding the project by fall 2024, with the actual construction beginning sometime in 2025. The early part of next year will be spent working through the permitting process.
Plans for the Community Park North expansion project have been in the works for more than a decade, and were included in the “Comprehensive Recreation and Open Space Plan” adopted in 2012.
Last month, Cranberry Township received a grant of more than $2.7 million from Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to expand the community park.
“It’s been slow going in assembling all the funding to make something like this happen,” said Kyle Beidler, strategic planning officer for Cranberry Township. “This was the fourth time we applied for the same funds. We tried again, we tried again, and it turned out the fourth time was the charm here.”
The community park, located on Ernie Mashuda Drive, first opened in 1962. The township purchased the 28-acre plot of land that will be utilized for the Community Park North expansion — nicknamed the Lindner Tract — in 2005 and made it a part of the community park.
A dog park currently occupies part of the site of the planned Community Park North expansion. While the dog park is still there, the new Rotary Dog Park opened not far away last year. It addressed residents’ concerns with the old dog park, such has lack of shade.
At Thursday’s meeting, Beidler presented a conceptual sketch of the Community Park North project, which will take up about 10 acres.
“This whole idea has been developed over the last, probably, 19 months,” said board of supervisors chairman Mike Manipole. “We started making some preparations to remove the current dog park. It’s actually still open right now. Until we go ahead and start working in the park, it’s going to remain partly open in phases. But the new dog park has already taken effect. It’s already up and running.”
The centerpiece of the preliminary plans is a pair of multipurpose sports fields, which fits in with the 2012 plan’s desire to provide more access to the outdoors for the children of the township
“All of our other fields throughout the park system are really dedicated to different sporting activities. We have fields for baseball. We have fields for football,” said Beidler. “We have no multipurpose fields that were really available for Parks and Rec to program other activities.”
For now, the plans for Community Park North also include easy access to the nearby Cranberry Township Public Works building as well as the Public Safety Training Center.
