Rainbow Raccoon Park in Millvale set to open in April
Share this post:
After years of work, Rainbow Raccoon Park in Millvale is set to open this spring.
The park, located between Meade Street and Evergreen Avenue next to Strange Roots Experimental Ales, will open April 26 and continue to see additions after that.
According to Millvale Community Development Corporation Board President Brian Wolovich, the park will open with a basketball court, bike track, picnic area and a large mural on the side of Strange Roots.
The grand opening, Wolovich said, will be preceded by a borough cleanup from 9 a.m. to noon. The opening, set for noon, also will include a cookout, he said.
Though the park will be accessible to the public on the 26th, Wolovich said its signature rainbow raccoon will be installed closer to Millvale Music Festival, which is set for May 16-17. That is in addition to other planned amenities such as playground equipment, a stage and a sensory play area the MCDC hopes to install later, Wolovich said.
“What we are opening is not the end,” he said.
The raccoon, he said, is an “iconic” image, a “scrappy, smart survivor.” And the park’s rainbow theme is meant to make the space prominent but also show that it welcomes everyone, Wolovich said. Shaler Area High School students, who have been involved in the park since its inception, helped to name it, he said.
To craft that “iconic” image, MCDC selected the Braddock-based Gallery AFK to forge and install the rainbow raccoon.
Though current proposals have the raccoon’s height set for 12 feet, the gallery’s general manager, Filip Agren, said he hopes to raise it to 16 or even 20 feet.
All the artists are from the Pittsburgh area, and one, Max Arocena, is even based in Millvale, Agren said. He said the raccoon will be one of the gallery’s first ventures into public art, and he and his fellow artists are “super excited.”
“It’s really, really exciting, and I think everybody at the gallery is pretty pumped,” he said.
Agren said the designs of the raccoon should be complete within the next few weeks, which will allow them to begin working on the steel structure.
The gallery’s sculptors and welders, he said, will create the potentially two-story nocturnal mammal out of large steel triangles welded in an “origami-like” fashion. Following that, Gallery AFK muralists will paint the structure with its signature rainbow color scheme.
The park, funded by grants from the Henry L. Hillman and Grable foundations, was created through the efforts of Millvale volunteers, Shaler Area High School students and others, Wolovich said. The Triboro Ecodistrict, a community development organization for Etna, Millvale and Sharpsburg, also was instrumental in obtaining funding, he said.
The land the park will occupy, visible from Route 28, was a longtime vacant lot — and basically was used as a “junk yard,” according to Wolovich.
During the “absolute slugfest” to clear the space, Wolovich said he and other volunteers filled three 30-yard dumpsters.
Eddie Figas, manager of Millvale, said the park will fill “a much-needed gap” for children’s activities while also brightening the entrance into the borough.
“It takes it from a space that was never utilized to something that’s very useful and welcoming,” Figas said.
Students at Shaler Area High School, in an effort to create benches for use in the park, have been running a plastic cap drive since October. According to high school teacher Abby Nilson, students have collected more than 200 pounds of caps as they progress toward their 400-pound goal.
These caps, Nilson said, will be melted down into a plastic lumber material and crafted into two rainbow benches in April.
“I think they are enjoying contributing to the community,” Nilson said.
But students have also previously labored in the park, helping to plant rainwater gardens and clear rubble.
For Wolovich, he said the opening will be “deeply satisfying.” But it also will wipe out the “helplessness” he said was projected by the cluttered old site in the heart of Millvale.
“We want people to come out and enjoy it, but we also want people to understand we’re continuing to make investments, there’s people here in the community who care about you, and we’re working hard together,” he said.
Though the funding for future additions to the park is not currently lined up, Wolovich said he and the MCDC will continue to work toward its ultimate completion.