Jim Thorpe Borough Council is planning to “go big or go home” with a nearly $1.1 million grant funding request for the third phase of its master site implementation project at Memorial Park.

Next week, council plans to vote on submitting the application for a special fall funding round as part of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources recreation and conservation grants program.

“The big part of phase three at Memorial Park is going to be our two basketball courts,” Borough Manager Maureen Sterner said during a council workshop Thursday night. “The courts are one of the largest big ticket items on the master site plan and when this funding came available with so much up for grabs, we jumped on it.”

In addition to construction of the courts, lighting would also be included, bringing the actual grant application total to $1,082,000.

This special fall round is coming from multiple sources, with the largest being the federal American Rescue Plan Act funding made available to DCNR through the Outdoor Recreation Program as part of Pennsylvania’s fiscal year 2022-23 budget. The program includes a lower match requirement for municipalities with populations under 5,000 people. For these communities, such as Jim Thorpe, the match is 20% of the grant amount with no cap on project size.

“For the match, we could use Community Development Block Grant funding for two years and budget around $26,000 of our own funds each of the next two years to meet that requirement,” Sterner said.

Grant applications are due Oct. 27 and borough officials are hopeful for a positive outcome.

“I know $1 million would go a long way to getting the park in nice shape,” Council President Greg Strubinger said. “One of the reasons we did the master site plan was so it would give us the ability to go out and get after this grant money and it’s paid off so far.”

The borough received a combined $287,000 for Phase 1 of the project from three different sources including DCNR and the Department of Community and Economic Development.

Phase 1, for which the borough hopes to start design work soon, will include new playground equipment for children in the 2- to 5-year-old age range.

The municipality learned last month it will receive $171,000 for Phase 2 of the project, which includes the construction of pedestrian walkways; installation of play equipment for ages 5-12, a sensory garden, and utilities; Americans with Disabilities Act access, landscaping, project sign and other related site improvements.

That funding also came courtesy of a state DCNR recreation grant and will go toward the estimated Phase 2 cost of $333,760.