18-04-2025
Dickson City awards $400,000-plus for park projects
Two Dickson City parks will receive more than $400,000 in new improvements this year amid the borough's ongoing efforts to upgrade its outdoor amenities.
Borough council approved nearly $412,000 in funding for its Crystal and Riverfront parks, upgrading facilities at Crystal Park at Doloff Drive and Shady Lane Drive, including adding a mural, and purchasing a pavilion for Riverfront Park on Enterprise Street, according to a meeting agenda and borough Manager Cesare Forconi.
Council voted last week to approve just $217,930.50 spread across three payments to Stafursky Paving Co. of Archbald for the first phase of the borough's Crystal Park development project. The first phase of work will involve redoing the baseball dugouts and press box, installing Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant walkways connecting each element of the park, adding a pickleball court, redoing the basketball court, expanding parking and putting in a rain garden, Forconi said. The borough awarded a $416,229.75 contract last fall to Reinfurt Excavating Inc. of Honesdale for all new playground equipment at the park as phase two of the project, Forconi said.
The contractors will work on both phases simultaneously. Forconi expects work to be complete by the fall.
Council also voted to hire local muralist Eric Bussart to paint a mural on all four walls of the concession building at the park, costing $16,500 for the mural itself and $2,175 for prep work, Forconi said. The mural will be recreation themed, encompassing Dickson City's various offerings at its parks, including baseball, softball, basketball, walking and fishing, he said.
'Everything that we can offer at our different parks, he's going to incorporate,' Forconi said.
Dickson City previously commissioned Bussart, whose artwork decorates walls and buildings across Lackawanna County, last year for a first responder-themed mural honoring late borough firefighter Bernard Seminski, who died while responding to a July 1954 fire, at his namesake Bernard Seminski Memorial Park at Dewey and Elm streets.
The new mural has to be completed by the end of June because of the grant funding the borough is using to pay for it, Forconi said. Dickson City will receive a total of $100,000 spread across four years for artwork in the town through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts,, Forconi said. The borough used last year's $25,000 grant for Bussart's Seminiski mural, and it is using this year's money for the Crystal Park mural. Beyond payment to Bussart, the remaining money will go toward things like lighting, he said.
At Riverfront Park, borough council voted to spend $175,000 to purchase and install a pavilion, Forconi said. The borough is buying the pavilion through the state's COSTARS cooperative purchasing program. The borough will use a $175,000 grant through the state Department of Community and Economic Development to pay for it.
Dickson City opened its Riverfront Park in October 2023 as the culmination of an $800,000-plus project to build a park in the 800 block of Enterprise Street that includes a Lackawanna River boat launch and fishing area, a dog park with sections for large and small animals, picnic tables, benches and a walking trail.
The addition of a pavilion will make the park multidimensional, Forconi said.
'We'll be able to do other things besides just the dog park and the walking trail,' he said.
He expects the borough to use the pavilion for events, including using it as a bandstand for the town's 150th anniversary festivities, he said.
Last month, council also voted to approve an agreement for engineering consulting firm GPI to carry out the design, bidding and construction management of a project to add about 18 lights around Riverfront Park, its access road and walking trail. Right now, the park's only lighting is in its parking lot.
That work will go out to bid very soon, Forconi said.
The park upgrades overall improve quality of life for residents while providing recreation for all ages, whether it's playgrounds, walking, basketball, pickleball or fishing and kayaking, Forconi said.
'We are proud of a lot of things that are happening here in Dickson City, between the Main Street revitalization and the different hospitals that are coming in between Lehigh Valley and Geisinger,' Forconi said. '(Residents) will have different parks that offer different recreational activities.'
