MORGANTOWN — I’m not saying the amenities in lower Marilla Park are outdated, but the lights are coin operated.
True story.
For $2/hour, you can illuminate your struggling tennis game.
At least you could.
The lights are currently out of order, and BOPARC does not intend to fix them. It intends to replace them as just one of a slate of upgrades coming to the park’s lower section.
In May 2024, Morgantown City Council passed a reimbursement resolution indicating the city’s intent to issue up to $11 million in lease revenue bonds through the Morgantown Building Commission for the project.
On Wednesday – as Marilla Park was completely overrun with young and old looking to beat the heat at the new pool complex in the park’s upper half – BOPARC Executive Director Melissa Wiles and representatives from architect Thrasher met briefly to open bids for the lower park project.
Bids were received from Anderson Excavating, High Point Construction Group, March-Westin and Veritas Contracting and ranged from just over $8.4 million to just over $9.3 million.
According to bid documents, the renovations will include the construction of six new tennis courts and six pickleball courts, a new basketball court, a 27,000 square-foot artificial grass field, renovations to the Marilla Center, two standalone bathroom facilities (one with four family bathrooms, one with two family bathrooms), and outdoor pump track/skate park facility, lightning for all recreation facilities, new parking lots, a concrete walkway, new pavilions and landscaping.
The park’s layout will be shifted, placing the skate park in the old pool location and moving the tennis courts down behind the Marilla Center, near the current skate park location.
It’s expected that the project will be substantially completed by April 30.
