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Peters Township council rejects aquatic center bids

By Jon Andreassi staff Writer jandreassi@observer-Reporter.Com 2 min read
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Peters Township council has officially pulled the plug on the aquatic center at Rolling Hills Park.

Council unanimously rejected all bids at its Monday meeting. Officials voted quickly with no discussion before moving on to other business, but their decision had been a foregone conclusion.

Township Manager Paul Lauer told council at the end of December that they had received a low bid of $17.35 million from the Hermitage-based Hudson Companies. He said at the time that his recommendation would be to reject the bids when it came up for a vote.

The bids far exceeded the $10 million council had budgeted for the project. Council had previously rejected an $11.4 million bid in 2021.

“I don’t think even if you got a survey back that 100% of the residents of this township wanted it, I don’t see how we could justify spending $17 million on it,” council member Frank Kosir Jr. said at the December meeting.

Council received four additional bids for the aquatic center, the highest coming in at $19.7 million from the Morgantown-based Fairchance Construction.

Peters Township received multiple grants for the aquatic center, most recently a $631,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Lauer explained at council’s December meeting that while the township cannot repurpose the funds for another project, they have a five-year window before having to forfeit the money.

Had the aquatic center come to fruition, it would have featured a pool, water slides, lazy river and a splash park.

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