Borough adjusts plan to replace garage, will preserve Jr. Devils practice field
SHENANDOAH – Borough leaders led the Sentinel on a walkthrough of Bicentennial Park and the current borough garage as plans for the latter’s replacement have changed again.
The new garage will now be built along the rear of the basketball and tennis courts in an area where millings have been dumped for the past few years.
Borough vehicles will use the access road that runs through the middle of the park on the east end.
The new plan comes as Borough Manager Mike Cadau says challenges continue with the current 2006-built garage.
“Rats got back into it again,” Cadau said. Exterminators have been on site several times to little avail.
Additionally, the current garage is heated by a single wood-pellet stove. Doors have been damaged and the side wall of the salt shed is visibly rotting away.
Initially, the borough had planned to build the new garage on the field to the east of the park, a plan that drew ire from the Shenandoah Jr. Blue Devils organization. It uses the field as a space for its football team and cheer squads to practice.
That plan was nixed, officials told the Sentinel, due to concerns with a prior grant and deed restrictions on the property.
“They got the field to utilize, it’s still there,” Borough Councilman Mike Whitecavage, who chairs the recreation committee with Mike “Zeckie” Uholik and Diane Korenda. “Now, how do we improve it.”
Cadau lamented the opposition, saying he believed the practice field he envisioned on the site of the current garage was superior to the current practice field.
Public Works Director Brian Oliver said replacing the garage on the current site isn’t feasible as maneuvering space is needed to properly park the trash truck.
“I need the building to be wider to get the trash truck in correctly,” he told the Sentinel. “It has to be backed in on an angle because it’s too long.”
Oliver said the basketball and tennis court will be shifted and playground equipment will be added in the park.
The courts have been rendered unusable for the past few years as millings had been dumped atop the tennis courts. Pebbles from those piles spread onto the basketball court, which made it unusable as well.
“We’re working hard to make it nice,” Whitecavage said of the planned improvements to Bicentennial Park and the borough’s other two parks, Vine Street and Girard. He said he hopes for a partnership with the Jr. Devils to improve their practice field. “We’re not anti-recreation.”
Earlier this month, council voted to award the first phase of the garage project, which would build the pole building with plumbing but leaves out electric work and fire suppression, to Dutchmen Construction for $469,460.
About Author
