MORGANTOWN — In the Chinese Zodiac, 2025 will be the year of the snake.
In Morgantown, it’ll be the year of Marilla Park.
An estimated $23.6 million worth of park improvements are expected to come online in that 12-month span.
BOPARC has released final renderings of what lower Marilla Park will look like following a complete reconfiguration currently estimated at just under $9.4 million.
Work on that project is expected to begin in late March or early April and be completed late next fall.
While that’s going on in lower Marilla, a new $14.2 million aquatic complex in upper Marilla Park will open next summer.
BOPARC Executive Director Melissa Wiles said the redesigned lower park will include a new action sports/skate park in the current footprint of the soon-to-be-demolished old Marilla Pool. The park’s new tennis courts will move to the end of the property to fill space currently occupied by the skate park and the footprint of the old shirt factory building.
Improvements will also include pickleball courts, covered and open bleachers for both the tennis and pickleball courts, a new basketball court, a recreational field, a trail head for the Marilla Connector Trail, revamped parking areas to serve each “zone,” and renovations to the Marilla Center.
Morgantown City Council is expected to take up ordinances tied to the financing of the lower Marilla Park project when it meets in October.
