Officials in Pleasant Hills Borough have indefinitely halted plans to build a performance stage in Mowry Park. Instead, they are considering a comprehensive renovation of the two borough parks and roller hockey area.

"There were concerns about the location of a stage in Mowry Park and how it would be used. We heard from a lot of residents about it and then we went out to look at the park ourselves. That prompted us to look at possibly renovating all our parks, instead," said borough council President Rob Bootay.

The council, which was supposed to hold a special session Tuesday to consider plans to build a stage in Mowry Park, canceled that meeting after members decided that they want "to put off that plan indefinitely and look at how we can improve our entire park system," Mr. Bootay said.

To that end, council has commissioned the borough's engineer to study and put together a renovation plan of Mowry and Pleasant Kingdom parks and the roller hockey area.

"Nothing of what we want to do has been defined. We are going to give the engineer a broad brush because we don't want to limit ourselves, even though we are mindful of budget issues," Mr. Bootay said, adding that council, so far, has no estimation of how much its comprehensive parks overhaul could cost.

What is now an expansive project to upgrade the borough's parks system started nearly three years ago when its public works department received a $13,000 donation from the American Legion Post 712 to build a permanent performance stage in Mowry Park.

The borough used to rent a movable stage from Allegheny County for its annual Community Day celebration in August. After the county stopped renting out the stage, the borough considered building a permanent one, said borough Solicitor Fred Jug.

But when the 20-by-36-foot concrete structure, which would have been built beside the first baseball field in Mowry Park, was proposed, it faced considerable opposition from a number of nearby residents who worried about the noise that would be generated by constant performances on the stage.

Borough public works Director Denny Kunkel, who supported the idea, said the noise issue could have been solved by building a curtain along the back of the concrete wall in the rear of the stage as a noise buffer.

But after hearing complaints from a number of residents during a public meeting last week, the borough's planning commission unanimously voted to halt plans to build the stage -- leaving the issue to be settled by council.

Mr. Jug said council would have dealt with the issue at its special meeting on Tuesday, "but now they want to look at the parks as a whole. And that may or may not include the construction of a stage in Mowry Park."