South Park Oval receives makeover; more county park improvements coming

Joggers, walkers and stair-runners will have a new playground in South Park on Saturday when Allegheny County officially reopens the renovated “Oval” at the fairgrounds there.

In the year since the area closed for renovations, the $1 million project resurfaced the oval track that gave the area its name; realigned the baseball fields inside the track; added bleachers and backstops at field level; and removed crumbling steel and concrete bleachers on one side of the track.

“It will be a much nicer environment for people, and safer,” said Caren Glotfelty, executive director of the Allegheny County Parks Foundation, which oversaw fundraising for the project.

Removing the bleachers was the biggest safety improvement, while re-orienting the fields should improve player safety by keeping the sun out of players' eyes for more of the day, she said. In place of the concrete and metal bleachers, the hillsides above the track have been planted with low-maintenance shrubs and grass.

While the track and stairs have been unofficially open to users since fall, no activities had been scheduled for the track or the fields inside to give the new grass time to grow. The first Little League games on the new fields should begin this month, Glotfelty said.

The grand opening festivities will kick off with a ticketed lunch at the oval from noon to 2 p.m., with proceeds from ticket sales going to the Allegheny County Parks Foundation for future improvements. A ribbon-cutting ceremony, activities, food trucks and a free concert will follow.

The work at South Park is one of several projects slated to wrap up in the county's parks this spring and summer, said Ron Schipani, director of capital projects for the foundation.

The next step at South Park will be to repair and replace the pockmarked parking lot above the oval, likely with permeable pavement, he said.

“We're looking for something ‘green' at this point to handle storm water,” Schipani said.

Another ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held May 30 for the latest section of separated bike and pedestrian lanes around North Park Lake, Schipani said. Where cyclists, walkers and runners had to share a 6- to 8-foot-wide lane along Ingomar Road, now there will be 12 to 14 feet of Ingomar Road set aside for them, with separate lanes for bikes and pedestrians.

Now, almost all of the five-mile loop around the lake has the new lanes, after projects converted Babcock Boulevard and Lake Shore Drive. The foundation is raising money for the estimated $1.2 million cost of adding the lanes to Pearce Mill Road.

“The intention for it is to be (set up) like Ingomar but wider, like Lake Shore Drive,” Schipani said.

Later this summer, the county will open a trail extension connecting Settlers Cabin Park to the Panhandle Trail. The foundation has been working on the trail from the heart of the park as far as Noblestown Road, while Allegheny County is paying for the extension from Noblestown to the trail. Settlers Cabin is in Collier, North Fayette and Robinson.

That $500,000 project was jointly funded by Allegheny County and the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. It originally was scheduled to open in the spring, but bad winter weather meant completion was “sliding toward summer,” Schipani said.

Matthew Santoni is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-380-5625 or msantoni@tribweb.com.