Mt. Lebanon considers three potential locations as part of recreation center study
A feasibility study for a new or expanded recreation center in Mt. Lebanon has arrived at three potential locations.
Conducted as part of an update of the municipality’s parks master plan, the study is addressing possibilities in the Uptown business district and at McNeilly Park, along with Main Park, where the current recreation center was built in 1977.
“These were not chosen at random,” municipal planner and assistant manager Ian McMeans said Tuesday during a Mt. Lebanon Commission discussion session.
He said the selections are based on community feedback, including three surveys that have been distributed at various points since the study process began last summer.
“We continued to take things back to the public, to make sure we were on the right track,” he said.
The municipality is working with Environmental Planning and Design of Downtown Pittsburgh as the main consulting firm for the parks master plan, which last was updated in 2004.
“Each of these sites has something unique,” EPD senior associate Carolyn Yagle told commissioners said about potential recreation center locations. “Each of these sites has something different that it can offer in scale of a building, scale of parking and the type of access that is preferred.”
Types of locations vary, as well, with Main Park and Uptown far more centrally located within the municipality than McNeilly Park, which is in the northeastern corner of Mt. Lebanon.
“Main Park has somewhat limited bounds of its footprint,” McMeans said. “There are only certain places that something could be located in Main Park, unless a vast overhaul would be in the works.”
Regarding Uptown, he said the focus has been “primarily about using the South Garage space,” next to the municipal building in the 700 block of Washington Road. Other options could be considered.
As for McNeilly Park, the large amount of undeveloped space offers the potential for “more of a regional destination,” according to Yagle.
But access to the site is problematic.
“McNeilly Park is my ward, and I can tell you, there is no pedestrian access to that,” Commissioner Craig Grella said. “You have to walk through other municipalities just to get to it.”
Located off McNeilly Road, the park is next to Baldwin Township, and Pittsburgh’s Brookline neighborhood is just to the north.
“To my continued surprise, there’s still not a bus route that goes down McNeilly (Road), despite multiple housing and other things,” McMeans said. “It seems like a perfect connector road.”
A new facility at McNeilly Park would be similar geographically to the Upper St. Clair Community and Recreation Center, constructed by that municipality near the western edge of the township, creating an imbalance of access among residents.
Those who live in Upper St. Clair’s southeastern corner, for example, have a much greater distance to cover than some residents of neighboring municipalities such as Bridgeville and South Fayette Township.
“One of the key components of their cost structure is that it’s a significantly higher cost for a membership and admission fees for nonresidents,” McMeans said.
Grella compared a McNeilly Park location with the two other possibilities, “where people who are coming in from outside areas can see all that Mt. Lebanon has to offer, maybe get involved in Uptown shopping, that kind of stuff,” he said.
“How do we maintain responsibility to the public in funding this project when the potential for it would be kind of this regional hub, where we may not get all of the exposure in that type of area that we might want?” he added.
With regard to the parks master plan, McMeans said work continues on a first draft, which is expected to be distributed to commissioners, municipal staff and members of the municipal parks and sports advisory boards in February, for comment and feedback.
The schedule calls for presentation of a final plan at the commission’s March 22 discussion session and a final plan issued by March 31.