New play equipment coming for New Kensington's Summit Street Park

A New Kensington neighborhood park that was cleared out recently won’t remain empty for long.

New play equipment is coming to Summit Street Park, city Councilman Dante Cicconi said.

The park in the city’s Mount Vernon neighborhood is one of the city’s five neighborhood parks. One of the others, JFK Park, received new equipment when it was moved from one side of city hall on 11th Street and rebuilt nearby on Fourth Avenue.

“We see the value of these neighborhood parks,” Cicconi said. “All these parks need work. We’re trying to maintain them as best we can.”

The playground structure at Summit Street, dating from the early 1990s, was one of the worst in the city, Cicconi said. The all-wood structure was rotted. It had loose parts and was a potential safety hazard, he said.

The city is working with Westmoreland Community Action to replace the old structure with new ones, with some for children ages 2-5 and others for ages 5-12.

“They’re amazing structures for kiddos,” said Community Action CEO Mandy Welty Zalich.

The new equipment costs about $50,000, Zalich said. The money comes from a six-year neighborhood partnership program the group has with the city and is funded through a tax credit program.

The funders are UPMC and BNY Mellon, she said.

When the new equipment will be installed depends in part on the weather, Cicconi said.

Other projects undertaken through the partnership program, started in 2018, include the building of a community space beside Voodoo Brewery in downtown New Kensington and a mural that will be placed on the side of the former Walt’s Deli building at Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street.

It also has partnered with the Redevelopment Authority on projects such as helping with emergency blight removal, Zalich said.