Dancing to The Elderberries at Greencastle Senior Activity Center
Folks danced to ‘Johnny B. Goode’ performed by The Elderberries during the Older Americans Month celebration at Greencastle Senior Activity Center.
Shawn Hardy/Echo Pilot, Echo Pilot
Cheryl Walburn is as excited as a kid in a candy store when she talks about the new maintenance building at Antrim Township Community Park.
Construction started last October and the roughly 2,000-square-foot building is now complete.
See the pictures: Check out the new Antrim Township Community Park maintenance building
“These are exciting times here at the park,” said Walburn, the township’s parks director.
An open house will be held from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 18, at the building located at the north end of the park on Conococheague Lane off Grant Shook Road.
During the informal event, visitors can tour the building, check out the equipment, see the latest on the master site plan that’s being developed and learn about recently installed security features at Antrim Township Community Park.
“The park is growing and thriving, and we want to be able to react to needs immediately,” said Walburn. Previously, equipment had to be ferried from the township building on Antrim Church Road, at least a 10- to 15-minute trip one way.
What does the new maintenance building mean for the park?
The maintenance building has a barn-like design in keeping with the rural setting of Antrim Township Community Park. The four large overhead garage doors have a wooden look and there are false vents on the sides of the building and cupolas on top. The lower part of the exterior is stacked stone and the upper part vertical tan siding. A rain garden with native plants handles stormwater runoff.
Inside, one bay is set up as a maintenance shop. The adjacent area is wide open for storage of tools and equipment such as mowers, water trailers, snowblowers and a new multi-purpose Bobcat Tailcat with numerous attachments.
A second-floor loft is lined with shelves for storage of the myriad “parts and pieces” needed day to day. The diverse inventory includes faucets, toilet paper, trash bags, ballfield bases, paint for marking trails and the Christmas wreath for Martin’s Mill Bridge.
“It’s a game-changer,” said Walburn, explaining there previously was no place to store the miscellaneous supplies and she often had to run to Ace to buy them.
There’s also a “club room” with storage for the two groups that maintain the bike trails and disc golf course at ATPC.
The park office offers a nod to the past, with historic photos of the Grant Shook Road site displayed, along with wooden model of Martin’s Mill Bridge made by Jerry R. Defenderfer of Chambersburg.
The main Antrim Township Community Park encompasses 218 acres and trails connect to the adjacent Martin’s Mill Bridge Park. It is about 7 acres along the Conococheague Creek and home to the 1849 Martin’s Mill Covered Bridge. There also is the 3-acre Enoch Brown Park in the northwest part township.
The historic covered bridge has seen its share of hardships and restorations over the years. Walburn and her husband used scrap from lumber from the bridge to make the large solid oak conference table in the office.
“What people see as junk, I see something else,” Walburn said, pointing to the original nail holes in the table.
The office wallboard and window and door trim are repurposed from the animal pens of a barn on the park property. The barn had been used to store mowers before it became unsafe, according to Walburn, who said there also were concerns about equipment moving in and out of a building in the middle of where children play. The barn will be torn down, probably in 2024.
The barn was built, likely in the 1920s, of pine and hemlock and not hardwood. It would take an estimated $500,000 to make it safe and $2.5 million to repurpose it for community space.
“It pains all of us … but the supervisors decided the value is not there,” Walburn said.
The intent is to reuse as much of the barn as possible, such as incorporating its stones into a natural play area that’s proposed in the master site plan. The plan also includes an all-access playground, a bicycle pump track and a ninja-like challenge course, along with passive recreation include tails and wildflower meadows.
Amid the historic touches in the office are the components of a thoroughly modern security system installed at the park earlier this year.
Why are security cameras needed at the park?
The new security system includes about 36 cameras recording 24/7 throughout the park, along with a license-plate reader.
“All the awfuls are out there,” Walburn said.
Problems at the park have included vehicle break-ins, belligerent people, drugs, vandalism and graffiti.
Township supervisors heard from constituents they didn’t feel safe at the park, and supervisors addressed their concerns with the high-tech system.
It can zoom in on images in high definition, search exact locations in the park and keep recording even if the power goes out.
One of the first incidents investigated using the system was an attack by an unleashed dog.
“We don’t want people to feel watched, but to have the peace of mind that if something happens, we have it (on tape),” Walburn said, noting the reaction from the community has been positive.
The security system cost around $100,000 and “the peace of mind our park users should have is worth every penny,” Walburn said.
Township employees did some of the work for the security system, such as laying fiber optics in the ground.
Township staff also did work on the maintenance building including electrical, plumbing and some finish work.
Not including the in-house work, the cost of the maintenance building — site work, drawings, engineering and construction — was about $720,000.
The projects were funded by the host municipality fees — also known as “tipping fees” — paid by Waste Management’s Mountain View Reclamation landfill at Upton. Recreation is one of permitted uses for those fees.
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Shawn Hardy is a reporter with Gannett’s Franklin County newspapers in south-central Pennsylvania — the Echo Pilot in Greencastle, The Record Herald in Waynesboro and the Public Opinion in Chambersburg. She has more than 35 years of journalism experience. Reach her at shardy@gannett.com
