Ferguson Township’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday decided to revisit the master plan for Cecil Irvin Park, but made no final decision on if or how the next phase will proceed before a state grant expires in 2027.
Current plans for phase 2 of the park, located at 126 Cinda Drive, near Pine Grove Mills, includes include an access driveway, parking area, pavilion, extensive walking paths, picnic tables, benches, water fountain, trash and recycling receptacles and a kiosk, as well as stormwater management measures.
A shared-use path would also connect the entry plaza to the Nixon Road bike path, creating a continuous connection from the park through Pine Grove Mills to Ferguson Township Elementary School.
The township received in 2023 a grant from the Land Water Conservation Fund administered by the state Department of Natural Resources to cover 50% of the phase 2 cost, which is now projected to be about $1.1 million, meaning the township would be responsible for $555,000.
With a grant completion date of September 2027, the township will need to begin moving forward in the next six months or so if it wants to meet that deadline. Assistant Township Manager Jaymes Progar said, however, that the state typically offers some leeway as long as work has started and is progressing.
The project is approved in Ferguson Township’s 2026 capital improvement plan and operating budget, interim Township Manager Tom King said, but because the 2026
operating budget is structurally unbalanced by about $3.6 million, staff requested that the supervisors provide direction on whether it should proceed to design.
Supervisors raised concerns about the potential for costs to rise further before the project is shovel-ready, and about whether the plans for the phase, based on a 2011 master plan, still meet the needs and wishes of the township and its residents.
Supervisor Trevor White said he worried that the rising cost of petroleum could have an impact on the prices of materials.
“The way the budget is, the way the world’s going. I think it is smart to hold off on this,” White said.
While the driveway would require asphalt, the parking area would be asphalt pavers and the path is not expected to be paved, Progar said.
“We’ve gone back and forth on that a few times, but I believe that was some of the recommendation that it was possible that we wouldn’t pave it to control costs,” Progar said. “Everything else that’s there, there is a small pavilion that was mentioned. The rest of it is really managing the stormwater aspects to the park site itself, and then everything else is … it’s natural and green. So there is not really a ton of materials. There is no playground involved here. Benches, trash receptacles, but not a lot of components, I would say, to this park project, but [the costs] absolutely could go up.”
Supervisor Matthew Heller said the plan should focus on access to phase 1 of the park. The first phase of the planned 16-acre park on former farmland north of the Westfield and Hillside Farm Estates neighborhoods included playground equipment, a pergola, a half-mile walking trail, a multi-use field and a sledding hill.
“I think the focus should really be on the parking around the thing that currently exists that draws people in,” Heller said. “Residents have been talking about that for years. They have to park on a dead end street and walk through, it feels like almost somebody’s backyard, to work their way over to the part that’s actually active right now and been active for years. So, if anything, I would propose maybe a more a different redesign that focuses on the parking around the current location and connectivity to the elementary school.”
Though not part of phase 2, the master plan includes a third phase with tennis and basketball courts, sand volleyball and an additional multi-use field. Heller questioned whether those elements were still desired by residents, and suggested the overall scope of the park could be reduced.
“I would ask that maybe we reconsider the layout of the park, reducing the footprint to something that’s manageable around the current location, increasing mobility from that location to other areas like Ferguson Township Elementary, because folks do want to walk between those areas, and the addition of a pavilion. Make it simple,” Heller said. “And then the question also comes into what do we do with all this extra land? Well, do we hold on to it? Do we divest of it? That’s a future conversation. We talk about revenue, that’s prime real estate.”
Supervisor Patty Stephens said she was concerned that if the township did not move forward with the project, it could not only lose the grant funding but also might risk being awarded similar grants in the future.
She asked township staff to look into whether the state would grant an extension on the completion date.
On the recommendation of board Chair Omari Patterson, council approved a motion for the township’s Parks Committee to review the master plan and for staff to engage with other committees and community stakeholders for input for the board to consider in about three months. They also directed staff to find out whether the cost of staff time counts toward the grant match.
“Let’s take a look at this,” Patterson said. “Let’s reopen what that plan is. Spend a little time on it. Come up with something, and it doesn’t have to be now that we commit to that plan, but it does have to be probably within the next six months.”
