Port Authority OKs $3.3 million makeover for McCandless Park & Ride

Port Authority’s Park & Ride in McCandless won’t get a whole lot bigger when a $3.3 million renovation project is completed, but it will certainly be a lot less dismal.

Allegheny County’s transportation agency has given the green light to increase the lot’s capacity from 350 to 400 spaces, said spokesman Adam Brandolph.

The Port Authority’s board of directors awarded the contract in late May to the low-bidder Murin & Murn Inc. of Glassport.

The project is expected to take about nine months to complete, but no date has been set for when work will begin, Brandolph said.

“We’re hoping they will be able to begin during this construction season but we don’t have a firm start date,” he said, noting that the facility’s capacity could be reduced during construction to park trucks and store materials.

The Park & Ride, which is served by the O12 McKnight Flyer and 12 McKnight routes, is located in a portion of parking lot of the shuttered Rave movie theater along Blazier Drive.

The current facility is nothing more than a bus shelter surrounded by jersey barriers and rows of signs designating handicapped parking.

Plans call for replacing the existing shelter, repaving the crumbling roadway, installing sidewalks, improving access for people with physical challenges, adding green space and adding led lighting to the site, Brandolph said.

The portable restroom drivers now have to use during short layovers will be replaced by a permanent break room he said.

“Right now the Park & Ride is in the middle of a large parking lot,” Brandolph said. “When the project is completed, the facility will have a much more clearly defined location.”

While the theater has been closed since 2014, the parking lot is leased by a number of North Hills auto dealerships to store inventory.

The federal government designated the site a flood plain in 1980 — two years after the theater debut as Showcase Cinema North, which later became Rave.

Hurricane Ivan in 2004 resulted in water rising to the seventh row of seats in the theater’s sloped auditorium, according to McCandless officials.

To combat flooding on the portion of the site it owns for the Park & Ride, the contractor will install underground stormwater storage tanks.