LIMERICK — Workers this week are putting the finishing touches on the $1.3 million expansion of Limerick Community Park, which includes new tennis and pickleball courts.
Township Manager Dan Kerr updated the supervisors during the Oct. 1 meeting and received permission to open the completed tennis and pickleball courts to the public earlier than planned. An official ribbon-cutting, Kerr said, will occur later in the month near Oct. 26 when the new parking lot, with 60 to 70 new spots off Ridge Pike, is striped and finished.
“We anticipate a lot of use of those facilities,” Kerr told the supervisors. “We’re already getting requests for time, so I think we’re going to schedule them in one-hour blocks.”
Kerr said that state Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist., “was instrumental in getting the township three grants” from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, adding up to $675,000, to help pay the cost and the township matched those grants.
Even with the completion of the courts, phase one of the park master plan is not quite finished. At least two more ballfields are slated to be built as part of phase one, so long as the supervisors still support it and the funds can be found to pay for it, Kerr said.
Originally 56 acres, Limerick Community Park got 25 acres larger in 2016 thanks to the donation of adjacent land.
A $50,000 study – half of which was paid by a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources – looked at the best way to re-design the park, home to the signature Manderach Playground with its two-story slide.
Multi-use fields proposed include soccer, lacrosse, football; six baseball/softball fields, basketball, volleyball courts, “stones” area, trail connection to Krylo Preserve, community gardens are all part of the plan, which was finalized in 2022 after four years of work.
Kerr said subsequent phases included plans for a large multi-use field and a community activity center with an amphitheater, as well as a complete re-build of the Manderach playground.
