New park's fields expected to ease sports crunch

[Sonny]

From Pittsburgh, PA...

New park's fields expected to ease sports crunch

Thursday, October 06, 2005
By Karen Kane, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Plans for Cranberry's third community park have moved into the final design stage, and representatives of the township's booming youth sports programs couldn't be happier.

They told township supervisors last week that membership in their organizations has increased to the point of waiting lists and overscheduled fields.

Mike Diehl, township parks and recreation director, asked the board to speed up work on Graham Park so that new playing fields there will be ready by fall 2008.

The supervisors agreed, allocating $100,000 for final design by Herbert Rowland Grubic, of Cranberry.

On the drawing board for the first phase of park development are six ball fields, four soccer fields and three football and lacrosse fields. That's in addition to more than 3 miles of sidewalks and walking trails and more than 80 acres of open space.

"You won't be coming to Graham Park just to play baseball or softball or soccer or lacrosse,'' Mr. Diehl said.

Supervisors must decide the full scope of the first-phase development. The simplest approach is estimated to cost about $5.3 million. A series of options, ranging from relocating an electric line to planting street trees, could boost the bill by another $2.8 million.

The township's athletic associations have committed to contribute more than a $1 million worth of improvements and accessories to the fields. The breakdown is $802,561 for ball fields, $256,000 for soccer fields, $387,460 for football fields and $4,500 from lacrosse, which will share fields with football.

The final design is to be completed in the fall of 2006 with ground to be broken in the spring of 2007. Playing fiel

[Zeuslax]

That's great hear............Hopefully some field development happens in the City proper. There's room for expansion in Allegany County for sure, but UPMC in the city grabs land like I've never seen before. I thought Hopkins was bad in Baltimore. There's lots of green-space in Pittsburgh, but space that can be converted to recreation fields, I don't know?