Lackawanna County again seeks state funding for the first phase of a project to convert a boomerang-shaped tract of land bordering downtown Scranton into a county riverfront park.
Officials recently submitted and commissioners plan to retroactively authorize an application for $500,000 in state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources funding for the first phase of the park project on a 7-acre parcel off Bridge Street and Cliff Avenue between the Lackawanna River, the Steamtown National Historic Site and the Electric City Trolley Museum. Officials applied for the same grant funding last year, but the application was unsuccessful.
The area targeted for the park development is a contaminated former gas manufacturing site undergoing ongoing remediation by land owner UGI Utilities Inc. A prior board of commissioners agreed in 2023 to lease the land from UGI for $1 under a 30-year agreement allowing the county to create and operate a park there. The lease also includes an option for the county to purchase the property for $1 during the 30-year term.
If secured, the state grant funding will support phase one of the park development project, which includes the addition of a parking area and dog park, county economic development Director Kristin Magnotta confirmed. It wouldn’t require matching funds from the county since UGI’s investment in the site’s remediation would satisfy the matching requirements, she said.
Other conceptual plans for the prospective park include a boat launch with river access, a stage, band shell and event lawn, a playground, a multi-use path, an over-river connection to the Lackawanna Heritage Trail and additional amenities that could come later, during subsequent phases of the project. The park would also be located near where officials plan to site an Amtrak train station proposed as part of the unrelated project to restore passenger rail service between Scranton and New York City
“This park becomes especially important if you step back and think of the big, overall picture,” Commissioner Bill Gaughan said last year, when officials first applied for the DCNR funding. “The proposed Amtrak train that will pull in right behind the intermodal center, which will be bringing hundreds and hundreds of people to that area daily. The trolley museum. Steamtown. And the fact that we have an entire community of people now living in downtown Scranton. … This park is going to be such an asset for our city and for our county, and I really believe it’s going to drive further economic development and growth in that area.”
Commissioner Chris Chermak expressed a similar sentiment at the time, noting the park will be “a huge asset to the downtown area.”
If the project years in the making comes to fruition, the park would become the fifth in a county system that already includes McDade, Aylesworth, Merli-Sarnoski and Covington parks.
Commissioners intended to authorize the DCNR grant application Wednesday, but that meeting was postponed by a week, until April 9, for lack of a quorum. The rescheduled meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in the fifth-floor conference room of the county government center, 123 Wyoming Ave., Scranton.
Monday update
THEN: Lackawanna County applied for last year but was not awarded state grant funding for a proposed county park project in Scranton.
NOW: Officials are applying again and hope to secure $500,000 in funding for phase one of the park’s development.