New Kensington Council has awarded the first of three contracts that will see a parking lot transformed into a new downtown playground.
Council approved paying Derry Construction $32,175 to resurface the parking lot behind Peoples Library, along Barnes Street at Eighth Street.
The city is paying for the development with a $227,000 grant from the state’s Greenways, Trails and Recreation program.
Plans for the playground date to at least 2017, and its construction has been delayed, in part, because of the covid pandemic, city officials have said.
In addition to playground equipment for children, two basketball courts will be included. About one-quarter of the parking lot will remain for use by library patrons and employees.
Derry Construction’s work will involve removing 1½ inches of the existing, crumbling asphalt and putting down a new surface, city Engineer Tony Males said.
“The whole parking lot is in bad shape,” he said. That work should start by early May.
Males said the second contract will be for playground equipment, and the third will be for accessories, such as fencing, concrete work, installing basketball hoops and painting lines.
The basketball courts should be ready for use by mid-June, Males said. Because of delays in shipping, the installation of playground equipment might go into mid-July.
At a council meeting in December, resident Melvyn Smith proposed the city consider a grander plan for the park, making it larger and adding amenities such as a spray park, recreation area for the handicapped and a walking trail around its perimeter.
Smith’s plan also calls for closing Barnes Street at Eighth Street and making it one-way, crossing through a vacant, privately owned lot and connecting to an existing parklet on Fifth Avenue at Eighth Street.
Council did not discuss Smith’s proposal when it voted to award the asphalt contract .
Males said the city could still consider Smith’s idea. However, the proposed changes to Barnes Street would require a traffic study.
