Upgrades and work at Manor Park could be completed by this summer, Morrisville officials said last week.
Jacob Brink of Gilmore & Associates, Inc. said at last week’s council meeting that the Manor Park project is expected to be completed by summer.
Brink anticipates bidding letters to be sent out at the end of the week, and an award of the contract by March 18th. Depending on the weather, the renovated playground is expected to be ready by May or June, the engineer said.
Aside from site work, new playground equipment will be installed.
The park, 1.2 in acres, contains a hockey rink and playground.
Morrisville received a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to pay for the work at the park in September.
Located on E. Cleveland Ave, the playground sits next to the Manor Park Elementary School, which closed in 1994. It also shares a parking lot with the Morrisville Senior Center and the District Courthouse.
The school property was purchased by Kevin Romano, whose vision for the site is similar to the work he completed at 101 Washington St property which he owns. Romano has said he wants the school site to be part of the community, not a standalone.
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Officials also discussed plans for the parking lot that sits between the park and the Morrisville Senior Center. It is part of the same parcel as the Clover Leaf property. The parking lot and also the rest of the Clover Leaf parcel is first in need of an environmental cleanup.
When the environmental studies were done, they were looking at the parking lot to be possibly subdivided so when they did the study, the entire portion was not included. The remainder of the portion is not being used as ready for the cleanup and there’s still some testing that needs to be done under the parking lot next to the playground.
It was agreed to that the borough will have them proceed and the indemnification agreement is to protect the borough in case there’s additional work which would incur more cost. If there is additional cost because of additional remediation of the environmental cleanup that needs to be done, the borough would not be responsible for bearing the cost.
Interim Borough Manager Jim Dillon said that finally after many years it looks like we’re going to be able to get the Clover Leaf property environmental cleanup accomplished.
The CloverLeaf property, once housed the Cloverleaf restaurant and is in the Manor Park section of the borough, is now open space, deeded to the Bucks County Redevelopment Authority (BCRDA), and sits across the street from the Morrisville Cemetery on S. Pennsylvania Avenue. At one time it was a landfill.
Credit: Google Maps
In 2007, Morrisville Borough Council unanimously voted to recommend that (BCRDA) select AmeriCorps Homes, Inc. of Newtown as the developer of the Cloverleaf Estates Project. AmeriCorp never developed on that land.
Years ago, it was reported that Agostino Foods, a meat processing and packing company based in Bristol Borough and operated by John Passanante would open its new location in Morrisville by mid-2017. In 2025, the land is still open space.
In 2024, a motion came before the RDA board to authorize 7th Addendum to Redevelopment Agreement extending the due diligence period for Cloverleaf Estates Site in in the borough