The Borough of Dormont has a new date for its biggest park project, and it isn't an opening date. Bids to rebuild the Castle Playground in Dormont Park are due before 10 a.m. on October 22, 2026. The borough's fall 2025 newsletter had said the new playground was "slated for completion on July 4, 2026." That holiday has come and gone. The project is now at the stage where contractors put prices on the work. Across Dormont this fall, the dates in procurement and negotiation documents give the clearest view of what will change and when. Opening dates keep moving.
Two years of documents, three different targets
Put in order, the public record shows a project moving from an inspection to a grant, then through a series of target dates, and finally to a bid:
- October 2024. A borough playground audit looked at the "Dormont Park Castle Playground" and recommended replacing the entire play structure.
- August 2025. Patch reported that Dormont had won a $685,000 federal Land and Water Conservation Fund grant, coordinated through the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
- Fall 2025. The borough newsletter said a large share of the 2026 capital budget would go to the Next Generation Playground and named July 4, 2026 as the completion date.
- Winter newsletter. The target became construction in "Summer 2026." A later borough request for proposals moved the start of construction to "the latter half of 2026."
- September and October 2026. The notice to bidders ran on September 17 and 24. A mandatory pre-bid meeting was held October 1 at the pool lot, 1801 Dormont Avenue. Proposals close October 22 and go in only through PennBid.
The current notice gives no opening date. Bids due in late October mean the site work hasn't been awarded yet. Until a contractor signs on, any finish date is still a projection.
What the Phase 1 bid actually covers
The playground is the first of four phases the borough has laid out for this part of Dormont Park. Later phases add a picnic pavilion, a green with a stage, and the start of a trail. Phase 1 is the playground itself, and the bid notice spells out what that involves.
The base bid covers site construction:
- Clearing, grubbing, and demolition of existing features, with protection for anything that stays
- Bulk excavation, fine grading, and erosion and sediment controls
- Storm sewer installation and concrete paving
- New benches and the purchase of playground equipment
- Coordination with the play surface installer and the utilities
- "Community playground building coordination"
- DCNR signage, landscaping, plantings, and seeding
Five more pieces are priced as separate bids, under two contracts:
- Contract 1, additional bid 1: a retaining wall, concrete steps with handrails, and an entry plaza
- Contract 1, additional bid 2: buying and placing playground equipment on the hillside
- Contract 1, alternate bid 1: "community involvement development," meaning programs to engage the community before and during the building process
- Contract 2, base bid: electrical work for the existing restroom building and new park site lighting
- Contract 2, additional bid 1: more electrical work for new park site lighting
The entry plaza, steps, and hillside equipment show the borough designing around the slope. The community involvement item is priced as its own alternate, and the notice describes it as programs to engage residents before and during the build. When bids open on October 22, PennBid is set to post a public summary of the results.
Three funding numbers, three different documents
Three public figures are attached to this project:
- $685,000 from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund through DCNR, as Patch reported in August 2025. The bid notice itself says the project is partly funded by a DCNR Land and Water Conservation Fund grant.
- $100,000 from Allegheny County's 2025 Gaming Economic Development Tourism Fund awards, earmarked for the "Dormont Next Generation Playground Pavilion."
- $885,000, the total the borough's winter newsletter says it has been awarded toward the playground. The newsletter doesn't break that figure down by source.
These figures don't stack neatly. The county award is for the pavilion, and the pavilion belongs to a later phase. The $885,000 may already include one or both of the other grants. Each number comes from a different document, and none of those documents reconciles them.
The borough has also looked beyond grants. The official actions listed in its winter newsletter include a Park Sustainability Fund and a motion accepting playground fundraising piggy banks, with $984.39 in funding for the piggy banks themselves. That figure is what the borough spent. No published total shows how much the fundraising has brought in.
On Potomac Avenue, a shorter project slipped too
The same gap between a target and a real opening showed up this year on Potomac Avenue, only over a much shorter stretch. In July, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported plans for a sandwich shop next to Badamo's Pizza, with a goal of opening by September. The Pittsburgh Business Times reported the opening on October 8. It described the shop as a sandwich counter with a curated grocery. The exact first day of service hasn't been published. What's confirmed is that the shop was open by early October.
The new shop is Badamo Family Grocery & Sandwich Shop at 1511 Potomac Avenue. Badamo's Pizza stays next door at 1509. The two run separate online menus, and the shop's own ordering page is the one to use for the new counter. According to The Pittsburgh Wire's October 10 update, the menu included these when it checked:
| Item | Description | Listed price |
|---|---|---|
| Regina | Italian combo | $16.79 |
| Heartbeat | Meatball sandwich | $15.29 |
| Betty | Named sandwich | $14.00 |
The same report lists a porchetta sandwich, a vegetable-and-mozzarella option, and a build-your-own sandwich. The named sandwiches can't be modified. The grocery side has retail, deli, bread, and soup sections, with pantry items like olive oil, tomato products, and dried pasta. Prices and stock can change, so check the live menu before a special trip.
The sandwich shop opened about a month after its target. The playground is now more than three months past its own date, with a bid still to be awarded. The shop's date became firm once its doors opened. The playground's next firm date is October 22, when bids open.
At Dormont Junction, the clock hasn't really started
A few blocks away, Dormont's longest-range project is at an even earlier step. Pittsburgh Regional Transit and the borough plan to turn two surface parking lots next to the Dormont Junction light rail station into a mixed-use, mixed-income development. It's the first joint development project under PRT's current transit-oriented development program.
The idea goes back to a 2018 station area plan. Once that plan was finished in 2019, the borough amended its zoning code to support development around its light rail stations. In April 2026, the PRT board approved exclusive negotiations with Pennrose LLC as the development partner. Dormont Borough Council voted to enter that negotiation period at its June 1 meeting.
PRT's project page puts the negotiation period at six to 24 months, with community engagement at each step. Measured from June 1, that window ends somewhere between December 2026 and June 2028. And the end of that window marks the end of negotiating. Design and public review of the actual building come next. The plan also calls for better access to the station, including a proposed connection between Dormont Junction and West Liberty Avenue. No construction date has been posted.
The PRT page is where announcements about design and community meetings are expected to appear first.
What's actually fixed between now and December
Only a few dates on Dormont's fall calendar are firm and published:
- October 22, before 10 a.m.: Phase 1 playground bids are due through PennBid.
- October 31, 6 to 8 p.m.: Dormont trick-or-treat.
- December 5, noon to 5 p.m.: The Mt. Lebanon Partnership's Uptown Winter Market on Washington Road, with vendors, Santa, a chili cook-off, and family activities. It's a short trip for Dormont households.
The Dormont Street & Music Festival has already happened. It filled Potomac Avenue near West Liberty on October 10 with three stages, 18 bands, and more than 60 vendors. No Dormont holiday event for November or December 2026 has been posted yet.
After October 22, the next update to watch for is a Borough Council contract award for Phase 1. That award will be the first document able to support a realistic construction start for the Castle Playground replacement. Council business and park updates go out from the Borough of Dormont at 1444 Hillsdale Avenue, 412-561-8900, and on the borough website.
If you're weighing how Dormont Park, Potomac Avenue, and the station-area plans could shape the next few years on your street, Rachel Mazzie can help you follow these timelines with you as they develop. Schedule a free consultation, and we'll go over the dates that matter to you.
