Murrysville officials want resident feedback on proceeding with amphitheater project

Murrysville officials will take a second survey of residents as they consider whether to proceed with an amphitheater project at Murrysville Community Park.

“We’re at a very different place now than we were during the original survey,” Councilwoman Jamie Lee Korns said at last week’s council meeting.

A pre-pandemic plan to build an amphitheater with a seating area, food truck area, additional parking, restrooms and a utility building fell victim to supply-chain shortages and rising material costs.

It reached a point last spring where Murrysville officials opted to return a $300,000 state grant to pursue one twice its size, in order to keep up with the ballooning cost of the project — which had escalated to $1.2 million by that time.

Municipal public works crews already have begun some of the early work on the project, parts of which will benefit other areas in Murrysville Community Park.

“There’s no reason that work should stop, but I don’t think it would be a bad idea to re-survey people,” Lee Korns said.

In addition to the state grant funding, Murrysville Chief Administrator Michael Nestico said staff is seeking federal Community Development Block Grant funding to pay for restroom facilities.

Nestico said that if council chooses to proceed with the project, ongoing costs would be minimal.

“You’d have grass cutting, maintenance of the restrooms, things that usually fall under general public works duties,” he said. “We’re not installing anything that would require annual upkeep or maintenance, but we are installing water and sewage lines that will also benefit other parts of the park.”

Council’s consensus was to prepare a community survey about the project for approval and distribution in November.

“Right now, public works is doing earth-moving, but things could kick into gear in the early spring,” Nestico said. “If we do want to move forward on the project, we’d like to do it sooner than later.”

Lee Korns, Councilwoman Jamie Lingg and others said they’d like to hear from residents first.

“We’ve tried to be extremely fiscally conservative, and we’re trying to balance the fact that this survey was taken a number of years ago, and things are very different in the economy,” Lee Korns said.

“I just wonder if we shouldn’t be saving money for necessities rather than amenities,” Lingg said.