Sheraden Park Master Plan

The Sheraden Park Master Plan is a recommendation of the City’s Open Space, Parks and Recreation Plan, adopted in July 2013. The Open Space Plan recommended Sheraden Park’s designation as a signature community park. Sheraden Park’s scale makes it a site with strong potential to be expanded and redeveloped, thereby serving a larger population and providing green premium benefits to areas not benefitting from proximity to the City’s five regional parks. Signature community parks are prioritized because they have the greatest potential to fill gaps in the green premium, provide better and more diverse recreation experiences, and focus investment. Signature sites should receive a higher level of capital and maintenance funding than other community parks, have site-specific programming, and incorporate design features to highlight their specific identities. Regional-scale recreation facilities can be targeted for signature community parks, as well as community-scale recreation facilities.

The Open Space Plan recommends the following for Sheraden Park:

• Expand and redevelop, with a high level of investment.
• Designate this site as a signature community park.
• Sheraden Park has enormous potential to be expanded and redeveloped to become one of Pittsburgh’s signature community parks, with its forests, hills, and valleys defining its character.
• Expand Sheraden Park to include the series of public parcels that connect to McGonigle Park on the west and further south from McGonigle to the skate park, including 29 other parcels outlined in OpenSpacePGH on page 21 of Appendix G: Park Evaluation and Project List.
• Work with the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority pursuing the acquisition of the Duquesne Light Property to determine if further expansion or river access is feasible.
• Develop a new master plan that provides a vision for the expanded site (Sheraden Park, McGonigle Park, public parcels) and that uses the community park design guidelines as a starting point.
• In the Master Plan, address the relationship of the scattered facilities and evaluate the elimination of defunct or remote facilities.
• Consider new facilities for this site in the Master Plan with the purpose of creating a critical mass of outdoor recreation facilities that take advantage of the site’s expansiveness and sinuous character.
• Consider the addition of a dog park.
• Implement the new Master Plan.