As Whitehall Road Regional Park nears its public debut, we got a sneak peek at it all

After many years of anticipation, one of Centre Region Parks and Recreation’s largest projects — Whitehall Road Regional Park — is finally nearing completion.

While CRPR previously targeted a spring 2024 grand opening, wet weather is in part responsible for more delays with the project that’s been in the works after two decades of planning, litigation and more. Now, CRPR Director Kristy Owens told the Centre Daily Times, they hope to hold the grand opening sometime before fall so that fall sporting events can be held there.

While not yet ready for public use, many of the features of the multi-million dollar park are in place. Owens is particularly excited about the state-of-the-art playground that includes different areas designated for different age groups and all-abilities equipment.

“It’s got a number of different things that you won’t see on a lot of other playgrounds in the area, including signs for different areas of the playground, indicating what age group is to playing on which equipment,” Owens said.

Some of the playground features unique to Whitehall Road Regional Park are a wheelchair-accessible playground set and swings that young children and their parents can both ride on together and more.

The playground also features a soft safety surface to prevent kids from sustaining an injury when falling, shade sails that open up to provide cover on sunny days, and a metal fence surrounding the playground with three gates that keep children from wandering off.

The new park also features five fields that can be used to play various sports such as soccer, lacrosse and football. Two of the fields have been dubbed the “premier” fields. They’re 240 feet by 330 feet and will come with floodlights so that games can be played later in the day.

Two other fields are regular practice and game fields. These two fields are 180 feet by 330 feet and do not come with floodlights.

The fifth field is an unofficial practice and warm-up field without lights.

A gravel walking trail wraps around the entirety of the park, with a section of it cutting through some forest near the entrance — a piece of forest that Owens said adds a different aspect to the park.

“The majority of this park is left out in the open, but whenever you’re walking through this wooded section, to me it almost feels like you’re transported to a state park,” she said.

The park is located directly alongside the biking and walking trail that links Penn State and State College Borough to the Musser Gap trailhead and Rothrock State Forest.

There are several parking lots at various places throughout the property, with about 295 parking spaces, though more parking was planned.

“One of the largest worries that I have with the park — although I don’t have too many — is the lack of parking for large game or events,” Owens said. “We originally wanted to have more parking available for everything we’re going to hold here, but we just couldn’t make it happen with the area that we were given. There may be more parking constructed in the future though.”

Park continues to face delays

Parking lot issues aren’t the only challenges that the CRPR has faced throughout the project — there have been a number of others since the project broke ground in 2022 .

One of the largest problems that CRPR has been faced with has been wet weather — due to the large amounts of rain in the area in late winter and early spring, landscaping problems have been persistent.

“Because we got so much rain, we’re seeing a lot of difficulties when planting grass, and keeping it planted there,” Owens said. “Our contractors will plant something and within a couple of days it’ll rain and wash away all of the progress that’s been made.”

Trespassing and vandalism has also been a problem at the site. According to Owens, several people have made their way onto the premises of the park throughout the construction process and left behind messes to be cleaned up, including damage to the fencing surrounding the playground.

“I understand that people are excited to use the facilities here, and that this project has been a highly-anticipated one for years now, but we can’t have people coming here and using this equipment without it being ready,” Owens said. “That type of usage can cause damage, which only delays the opening of this park even more that it already has been.”

While late-summer or early fall is the target open date, Owens cautioned that issues could continue to impact the schedule.

“If we continue to face the challenges that we’ve been facing, the opening of the park will likely be further delayed,” Owens said. “We’re planning to have things up and running so that we can hold fall sports here, but that’s tentative too. Hopefully things go smoothly though so that we won’t have to worry about any more delays, but know that encountering those holdups is a real possibility.”

Before the project broke ground, the regional park faced numerous delays with permitting, unexpected rock excavation and site utility work, and funding disputes .

What’s next for the site?

With around half of the 100 acres in the park being developed, that leaves another 50 acres yet to be utilized — although the CRPR has a tentative plan for that too.

Tennis, pickleball and basketball courts are all options for what the additional space can be filled with, as well as additional parking.

All of this hard work doesn’t come without a cost though, as the price tag for the park currently sit around $7 million.

“It’s an expensive project, that’s for sure,” Owens said. “However, we’ve gotten grants through DCNR, DCED, the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau and others, along with countless donations from a number of sources that have helped with this process — and we’ll continue to take donations through the time that this project is finished. We are appreciative of any and all donations that are sent our way.”

More information on the Whitehall Road Regional Park can be found on the Centre Region Council of Government’s website .

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