Dunmore is moving forward with plans to transform a vacant East Drinker Street lot into a pocket park, paid for in part with fines from Keystone Sanitary Landfill odor violations.
The borough is accepting bids for its “2025 Park Development Project” at 211 E. Drinker St., advertising in a public notice published Thursday in The Times-Tribune that it is looking for a contractor to carry out hardscaping, landscaping, fencing and the demolition, disposal and replacement of sidewalks in front of the property. The town will accept bids for the pocket park in Dunmore Corners until Aug. 14 at 3 p.m., according to the notice.
The pocket park will be landscaped with decorative brickwork and amenities like picnic tables, borough Manager Greg Wolff said. He hopes to quickly begin work on the park.
“We’d like it sooner rather than later,” he said. “As long as all the financing is in place, everything looks good, we would hope to get it done as soon as possible.”
211 E. Drinker St. in Dunmore on Monday, July 21, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRPAHER)
Drinker St. in Dunmore on Monday, July 21, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRPAHER)
Mayor Max Conway, who is spearheading the project, said it’s important for the borough to have a presence in its downtown. The pocket park serves as a multipurpose area for Dunmore, whether it’s a spot for people to sit down for lunch or a venue for borough events like the annual Bucktown Musicfest summer concert series, Conway said.
“I’m not envisioning a playground or anything like that,” he said. “I want it to be grass and brick so that, for example, if you’re getting lunch somewhere in the Corners, you can go there, you can sit down at a picnic table with your friends or your family and just have a nice lunch right in downtown Dunmore.”
That could then lead to people stopping at other businesses in the area, spending more time in the borough, Conway said.
Borough council voted in April 2024 to authorize its solicitor to buy the land, and the following month, the borough closed on the 4,490-square-foot lot for $90,000, purchasing it from borough resident Thomas Toole, according to a deed recorded with the county on May 10, 2024.
The borough purchased the land using fines from the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, Wolff said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection ordered the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill to pay $575,000 in civil penalties in a March 29, 2024, consent order and agreement that was the culmination of 14 odor-related violations in just over a year, numerous odor complaints and at least 70 instances of DEP staff detecting offsite landfill odors.
The settlement required the landfill to set aside $180,000 for its two host municipalities — Dunmore and Throop — to use for community environmental projects.
Conway aims to use grant money to pay for the renovations, explaining he is striving to avoid drawing from the borough’s general fund. The Dunmore Business Association, which Conway helped found, previously received grant funding to create a downtown district plan, and Conway anticipates putting some of the excess funds toward the park.
Councilman Tom Hallinan also raised the idea of selling bricks at the park, allowing donors to customize them to raise money, Conway said.
“Ideally, this doesn’t cost the Dunmore taxpayers anything, and it gives them an opportunity to have a really nice green space in our downtown,” Conway said.
The lot has been vacant for nearly two decades. The borough closed a building on the property in July 2006 over structural and safety concerns, and it was demolished the following month. The property was most notably Denise’s Game Room.
In 1962, the building even served as the Dunmore Centennial Headquarters, according to a June 21, 1962, article in The Scranton Tribune.
A June 21, 1962, clip from The Scranton Tribune about 211 E. Drinker St. serving as Dunmore’s Centennial Headquarters. (TIMES-TRIBUNE ARCHIVES)
With Dunmore once again using the property, Conway hopes to finish the park by the spring.
“It’s a smaller lot, so there’s not a ton you can do with it,” he said. “It’s not like somebody was going to put a bigger building there or anything like that, so to have green space where we make it really nice and people can spend time there, I think it’s a win-win for everybody.”