MORGANTOWN – If you’re into action – particularly the variety involving people-powered wheels – a new trailside attraction taking shape along Deckers Creek may be right up your “ollie.”
Morgantown Staff Engineer Drew Gatlin said the mini action park being installed below BOPARC’s Whitemoore Park is on pace to be substantially complete by the end of September.
The park’s major elements – the bike jump line and adjoining concrete skate park – should be in place in a month or so.
The site is the former location of a BOPARC storage facility at the dead end of a short strip of road known as Valley Crossing. It sits across Deckers Creek from lower Greenmont, near the future site of a pedestrian bridge.
In December, Morgantown City Council approved a $653,775 contract with Nature Trails to build the project.
Funding is being split between BOPARC and grant support through the West Virginia Office of Economic Development’s Land and Water Conservation Fund.
BOPARC Executive Director Greg Travinski said BOPARC’s portion is approximately $315,000.
But that’s not the only action sports park coming to the immediate area.
Its big brother will be the centerpiece of the reconfigured lower portion of Marilla Park.
Travinski said Nature Trails is expected to mobilize within the next week to begin work on the new action sports park, which will sit in the former pool location.
As for the overall overhaul, Travinski said construction remains on schedule.
“Most of the lighting and sewer infrastructure has been completed on one side of the park. Light poles have been installed, basketball standards are in place, sidewalks have been poured, and the basketball and pickleball courts are scheduled to be poured this week.”
Construction on the Marilla Center renovation will begin immediately after BOPARC’s summer camps conclude on Aug. 7.
“Our anticipated timeline for substantial completion of the entire Lower Marilla Park project remains Spring 2027,” Travinski said.
In addition to the action sports park and Marilla Center improvements, the project will include six tennis courts, six pickleball courts, a new basketball court, a 27,000-square-foot artificial grass field, two standalone bathroom facilities, new lighting, parking, pavilions, walkways and landscaping.
High Point Construction Group was awarded the project for approximately $8.5 million in June 2025.
