"When you get to the top, you can see all the way to Downtown Pittsburgh. It's an incredible view." Joey-Linn Ulrich, executive director of the Allegheny County Parks Foundation, said that about the North Park Observation Tower on August 31, 2026. The tower has been closed to the public for many years, so a lot of people who live near the park have never seen that view.
If you live on Tullamore Trail or Durrow Court, both of which connect to Minnock Drive between Franklin Road and Mount Pleasant Road in Pine Township, North Park is your nearest big park. This fall it looks different. Allegheny County is rebuilding the two places most people picture when they think of North Park, and officials have tied at least one of those projects directly to the park's 100th anniversary. While the tower and the playground are fenced off, the rest of the park is carrying the season.
A Tower That Started Out Holding Water
The Observation Tower is 102 feet tall. It went up in 1937 as a water storage tank for McCandless and the surrounding area, not as a lookout. That same year, on July 5, 1937, the county dedicated North Park Lake. The lake and the tower are the same age, and both are older than most of the homes within a short drive of either one.
The restoration started with a ceremony on Monday, August 31, 2026. The project costs more than $3 million. According to WESA, crews will do structural repairs, sandblast the rusty exterior, and repaint the tower in its original silver-grey. They'll also restore the viewing platform at the top of the 154-step staircase and the historic terrazzo floor. The plan adds safety upgrades to the stair railings and platform, plus native plantings and new pathways around the base.
The money comes from the Allegheny County Parks Foundation, the Babcock Charitable Trust, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, individual donors, and Allegheny County. The Babcock Charitable Trust's share goes back years: the Foundation says the trust committed $400,000 to the tower in 2020. The Foundation's fundraising campaign is called "Bring Back The View." The Foundation also describes a proposed second phase with a plaza, interpretive signs, a sidewalk, shade trees in the parking lot, and accessibility improvements.
The reopening schedule matters if you plan to visit. Park officials told WESA the tower will open Monday through Friday from dawn to dusk at first. It will be closed most weekends while the county sees how busy weekends get. If your free time is Saturday and Sunday, the first climb may mean taking a weekday off.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato spoke at the kickoff and described what the park meant to her growing up:
"For me, as a North Hills girl, North Park was my central location. It was ice skating on Friday nights. It was attending 5Ks. It was birthday and graduation parties. It was Girl Scout camp every summer. It was learning about pollinators at the Latodami Center. It was a lot of rollerblading — because it was the '90s — around the lake."
Latodami is still open this fall, and many of the season's dated events are on its calendar.
The Playground Sits on a Name From the 1927 Purchase Records
The second project is on Tennis Court Road, next to the North Park Boathouse. Allegheny County is replacing the playground there. Work started in May, demolition of the old structures finished in July 2026, and the new playground should be done in early 2027.
According to the county, the site was once part of the Wagener family farm, and there's been a playground there since at least the 1970s. The last renovation was in 1999. The county's land timeline for North Park lists Nelson D. Wagener and Phillip J. Wagener in the County Commissioners' minutes of June 10, 1927. Harry H. Pearce, Wesley H. Pearce and Wilbert C. Pearce appear on the same list. The timeline records 1,713 acres bought in 1927, 20 more in 1929, and 410 in 1930. Kids climbing at the Boathouse next year will be on what used to be farmland.
The new playground will be a quarter acre bigger. It will be built from sustainably sourced black locust wood and themed after North Park Lake and the Boathouse, with accessible paths throughout. The county splits it into two areas:
- Ages 2 to 5: a small boat for imaginative play, a log climbing structure, and a music theatre cottage
- Ages 5 to 12: a large ship play structure, a double zip line, a rope climbing ring, an inclusive carousel, and a net spinner
- Shared: a swing set with 12 swings
The project also addresses something regular visitors to that corner of the park may have dealt with: the county describes drainage there as poor. The plan calls for new underdrains and a rain garden with more than 3,300 native perennials, along with 35 native trees in and around the playground. The county's project page still lists demolition as the current stage, even though its own text says demolition ended in July. September was the scheduled start for construction, so treat that date as a plan rather than confirmation that building has begun.
The Deadline Comes From 1927
The county's North Park timeline gives the park's dedication date as June 18, 1927. A history written by Allegheny County Park Rangers calls that day the park's formal opening. County sources give two dates for the resolution that created the park earlier that year. The History of North Park page says February 11, 1927, and the timeline PDF says February 7.
WESA reported that officials want the tower finished by next summer, "when North Park will celebrate its 100-year anniversary." No official centennial events or celebration date have been announced so far. June 18, 2027 is simply 100 years after the dedication date. The playground is due in early 2027, so it should be done before that date, though the county hasn't called it a centennial project.
Commissioner E.V. Babcock hired landscape architect Paul B. Riis to design North and South Parks. Commissioner John J. Kane pushed the idea of a lake for fishing. North Park Lake was made by turning Old Pine Creek and a marshy area into a lake, and its water still drains through Pine Creek to the Allegheny River in Etna.
Where the Season Moves While the Fences Are Up
Many of this fall's dated events are on the Latodami Nature Center's program list. The one evening event on the Boathouse Lawn is close to the playground construction site. Spots fill up, so check the county's listings before you go.
Date | Event | Where | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
Tue, Oct 6 | Tuesday evening hike | North Park | Second date Oct 20 |
Mon, Oct 12 | Indigenous Peoples Day Open Barn | Latodami Nature Center | Open barn program |
Thu, Oct 15 | National Fossil Day Open Barn with Rangers | Latodami Nature Center | Ranger-led |
Thu, Oct 22 | Campfire Ghost Stories | Boathouse Lawn, 10301 Pearce Mill Road | 7 to 8 p.m., storytellers Josh and Gab, ASL interpretation, bring chairs or blankets |
Sat, Oct 24 | Orange Trail day hike | North Park | 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., about 4.5 miles, moderate to difficult, ages 9 and up recommended |
Fri, Oct 30 | Bewitching Bats Halloween hike | Latodami Nature Center | 6 to 7:30 p.m., listed as full |
Tue, Nov 10 | Nature's Harvest, Young Nature Explorers | Latodami Nature Center | Youth program |
Sat, Nov 14 | Cozy Critters campfire | Latodami Nature Center | Noon to 1 p.m., all ages, registration opens Oct 14 |
Sat, Nov 14 | Native American Heritage Month celebration | Latodami Nature Center | Same day as Cozy Critters |
Wed, Nov 25 | Birding hike | Location to be announced | Day before Thanksgiving |
The Bewitching Bats hike filled up early, so Cozy Critters is the one to put on your calendar now. Registration opens October 14, and the county's registration page showed 20 openings when it was last checked. The Ghost Stories night is the only event on the list at the Boathouse itself. Over the Bar Bicycle Cafe is still the county's listed restaurant inside the Boathouse.
Latodami and Marshall Island Are Next in Line
The Parks Foundation's current project list goes beyond the tower. A master site plan for the 12 acres around the Latodami Nature Center will inventory the site and recommend improvements. A separate barn feasibility study will look at how the site could support environmental education in the future. The Foundation says carrying out either one depends on grant funding. The Marshall Island project calls for removing invasive species and diseased trees, taking out a retaining wall and mounded soil, and planting new shade trees, understory plants, and native shoreline stabilization. The project page doesn't give a construction date or a cost. Those two projects don't have a schedule yet. The tower and the playground do. The playground is due in early 2027, and the tower is targeted for summer 2027.
Living a short drive from North Park is part of what makes the streets off Minnock Drive appealing, and a restored tower and a new Boathouse playground will be part of how those homes get described in the next few years. If you're thinking about when to sell and how to present your home with those changes in mind, Zita Billmann can walk you through the timing. Request a Free Home Valuation to start the conversation.