Dickson City dog owners and their pups will have something new to wag about at Riverfront Park this summer.
The borough has three new additions planned in the coming months for its dog park in the 800 block of Enterprise Street, borough Manager Cesare Forconi said. From now through August, the borough will pave the park’s walking trail, install nearly two dozen lights and add a pavilion for residents to use, he said.
“The park has gotten a lot more use than we ever could have hoped for or anticipated,” Forconi said. “This is just going to add more uses and more functionality to the park.”
Bases for lamp posts lines the walking and biking trail in Riverfront Park in Dickson City Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
A trail comprised of crushed stone will be paved in Riverfront Park in Dickson City Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
A trail comprised of crushed stone will be paved in Riverfront Park in Dickson City Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
A trail comprised of crushed stone will be paved in Riverfront Park in Dickson City Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
A trail comprised of crushed stone will be paved in Riverfront Park in Dickson City Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
A trail comprised of crushed stone will be paved in Riverfront Park in Dickson City Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Dickson City opened its Riverfront Park in October 2023 as the culmination of an $800,000-plus project to build a borough park on a lot that had previously been used by the former Gibbons Ford to store trailers.
The idea for the park arose in 2017 when about 800 people signed a petition requesting a dog park in Dickson City, and the borough took a leap forward with the project three years later when it bought the land in July 2020 from Gibbons Ford for $150,000.
Riverfront Park features a dog park with sections for large and small animals, a Lackawanna River boat launch and fishing area, a walking trail, picnic tables and benches.
This week — weather permitting — crews will pave the walking trail around the park, widening it to 10 feet as they replace the crushed stone with asphalt, Forconi said. Currently, only one stretch of the trail is paved for vehicles to access the boat launch.
“This will be a smooth walking surface so people with disabilities or older people will be able to walk on a smoother surface,” he said, noting the crushed stone can get muddy and rutted.
The paved pathway will then allow for the borough to hold a Nay Aug Park-inspired Christmas light display in the winter, where motorists could drive through the park looking at the lights, council President Jeff Kovaleski said, comparing it to a smaller version of Scranton’s annual display at Nay Aug. Forconi also pointed to wintertime horse-drawn sleigh rides around the park on the paved surface.
Paving will cost just under $23,000, Forconi said.
Then, ideally next month, the borough will install 19 lights throughout the park, which currently only has lighting in the parking lot, Forconi said. Dickson City will use a $165,000 Local Share Account grant to pay for the lighting, he said. The bases for the lights and conduits are already in place, but crews will have to run wiring through the conduits, Forconi said.
The borough ordered the lights about six weeks ago, and the manufacturer has an eight- to 12-week lead time, he said. Once Dickson City receives the lights, the installation could be done in about a week, weather permitting, Forconi said.
“It’ll be safer, especially when the days get shorter,” he said.
Dickson City will also add lights and do some electrical work at the pavilion when it is ready, he said.
Finally, the borough should receive a pavilion for the park sometime in August, Forconi said. The pavilion will also serve as a bandstand when the town holds concerts at the park, like its newly launched Party in the Park concert series, he said. The borough purchased the pavilion for $175,000 through the state’s COSTARS cooperative purchasing program, Forconi said. The borough will use a $175,000 grant through the state Department of Community and Economic Development to pay for it.
In the future, the borough plans to build a pedestrian bridge linking Riverfront Park to the nearby Polonia Park, add playground equipment for kids and some additional picnic benches, Kovaleski said.
Kovaleski expects to add the playground equipment next year, and he anticipates the bridge materializing “sooner rather than later,” though there is not an exact time frame. With the borough’s first concert at Riverfront Park on Saturday drawing about 130 people despite the rainy weather, Kovaleski was enthusiastic about the park’s future.
“People are able to come out, enjoy company and be with other residents in the town,” he said. “It’s great to be able to see people do that in town and have a good time.”