Elected officials in Tredyffrin Township are moving ahead on turning an eyesore property into a park featuring tennis and pickleball, fulfilling a campaign promise of the chairperson’s. But some residents are worried the costs have soared too high.
What started as a project this year rehabbing the dilapidated Chase Road Park for roughly $725,000 in its first year, with more funding to come in later years, instead grew to $1.7 million this fiscal year. All said and done, it is likely to exceed $2 million, officials have said.
The jump in cost came with sticker shock for some residents, who have worried the township is sinking too much money into the park, and is doing so without sufficient public involvement.
“In my opinion, they should go back to the drawing board, because this whole thing is a way greater cost and scope than had ever been contemplated,” said Mike Heaberg, a resident who previously served as a board member.
Township officials argue it’s an investment for community amenities that flush reserves can cover.
“[The] $1.7 million to get a full five-acre park with all the courts and bathrooms and a big barn, … it’s not a bad deal if you think objectively about what we’re doing there,” said board chairperson David Miller.
The land
Located in Chesterbrook, Chase Road Park had a former life as a private swim club, with tennis courts and a popular parking lot basketball hoop that drew a crowd after hours. Almost a decade ago, its owner sold the park to a developer, who wanted to reimagine the five-acre parcel into housing. That wasn’t a popular plan, however, and the township rejected the request to change the zoning.
For years, the property languished, deteriorating with time. In 2025, the board bought the land for $625,000 through eminent domain.
Miller said the community was “overwhelmingly supportive” of the decision; he recalls meetings about the prospect being standing room only, with a majority in favor of the board’s decision.
The township’s eminent domain is still in the courts, where it could play out for years. The final price tag could be higher than that initial down payment, depending on a judge’s ruling.
The plan
Early into acquiring the property, the township discussed turning it into a long-requested racquet sports center, for which it was already outfitted. The park’s future surfaced at a series of Parks and Recreation board meetings in 2025 and 2026, and some tweaks were made along the way.
Under the current project plan, the park will offer four tennis courts, six pickleball courts, a bathroom building, and a storage barn. There will be a pavilion and a grassy area for community use.
Further down the line — and currently tabled while the board mulls it over — will be a basketball court, most likely a half court. The board is also considering adding a path and bridge to connect this park with nearby Wilson Park. Those would come with additional costs.
The cost
Budget-watching residents say they first saw upgrades to the park show up as a line item of around $400,000 for 2026, with further spending to come in subsequent years for an initial $1.3 million total estimate. But by the final round of the 2026 budget, that line item had increased to $725,000, with more spending to come.
Township staff found that it was more cost effective to do a bulk of the work in one year, Miller said, so they decided to speed up the process, hence that initial jump.
Then, at their May meeting, the board added a late agenda item to green light spending about $1.7 million to fix up the park — including the courts, fencing, the parking lot, constructing the barn and restroom facilities, a pavilion, and other “miscellaneous” work.
In total, the township estimates it will spend at least $2.3 million on the park, including the initial $625,000 to take it by eminent domain, and the upgrades.
That increase boiled down to a variety of reasons, Miller said. The condition of the courts was “not what we expected,” and they needed to be completely redone. The township decided to install a better fence, with sound-dampening material to snuff out the bouncing of pickleballs, which needed to be installed deeper into the ground than the previous posts. The bathroom building was “vandalized pretty heavily,” so they decided to knock it down and start over. Plus, “prices are higher” for materials like asphalt, he said.
“There’s a bunch of things like that that get it to creep,” he said.
Miller said the park will be paid for out of the regular operating budget; whatever doesn’t come out of normal tax revenue will come out of the general fund, which sits at about $18 million, he said.
The concerns
Heaberg, the former supervisor, told the board his “jaw was hanging open” when saw them approve the budget change for more than $1.7 million with no discussion.
“It blows my mind, really,” he said.
Speaking to the board in July, resident Carol Clarke didn’t “know how you can, in a meeting, go past the budget by more than a million dollars.”
“I think you owe it to the taxpayers to acknowledge what you’re doing, and maybe the taxpayers might have said, ‘Whoa, is this an appropriate use of our funds? Could we be doing something else?’” she told them. “I support the park, but maybe it would have been an idea of, ‘Well, let’s get the funding in place, etc., and then we can add on to the park.’ … There’s good things that are being done, but is that a wise use of our funds?”
Plus, the township’s use of the COSTARS, a program that allows local governments to purchase supplies and services through state-managed contracts, seemed problematic to resident Ray Clarke, who argued the project should have been competitively bid, citing the township’s charter.
“All projects must be competitively bid, with exception of a few things into which this does not fall,” he told the board, noting that “all the sudden” a list was given by the same contractor who worked on nearby Wilson Farm Park, which was renovated in 2025 and 2026.
“Which may well be the lowest cost — who knows, we have no idea,” he said.
Miller disputed that reading, saying the township was within its rights to use the COSTARS program rather than request bids.
The pushback from residents has led to some charged moments in recent months.
Board member Carlotta Johnston-Pugh said she understood “the public is having a hissy fit because they don’t feel like they were involved. I understand that.”
“Because yes, if a million dollars or a $1.2 or $2 million is coming out of a general fund or a piggy bank, yes, everybody in this township should have a say in it. What do you want us to do? Do you want us to stop the project completely, go back to the drawing board?” she said. “… I’m getting a headache. I’m actually getting a headache.”
The flip side
The project isn’t without its supporters, however, arguing the board had been clear about the timeline and the scope.
“We went through 10 years of a derelict property in our neighborhood and we are grateful” the work isn’t being phased in, like previous plans discussed, said Joanna Fisher, of the Chesterbrook Civic Association.
Tim Connor, who lives near the park, said the alternative was dozens of townhouses, which would have been a negative for the community.
“Yes, it’s an investment right now, but long-term, those 50 townhouses would have had so many kids in the schools. It was a long-term loser. I think [this is a] better alternative,” he said.
And for Miller, the park has been a personal goal: He campaigned on it. The township is working with Miller, separately, for naming rights of the park which he’d purchase for $625,000 — the initial cost to purchase the land. (It would not be named for Miller himself, he said.)
Miller abstained from an initial vote in June OK’ing the township to draw up an agreement with the solicitor for naming rights. Miller said if someone else wanted to donate, he’d drop his bid, but he had the “capacity and willingness, and it’s important to me.”
“When I ran this time, I said I was going to get this park built. I got over 8,000 votes,” he said later. “It seemed like something I should do since I told people I’d get it done.”
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