Founders Park in Hempfield Township: What Residents Should Know

Drive Route 30 between the Mt. Pleasant Road and Cedar Street exits this summer and you will pass a stretch of new pavement, a low building with a metal roof, and what looks like a construction site behind a chain-link fence. Most people who live in Hempfield Township glance at it, assume it is still being built, and keep driving toward the mall or the Home Depot. Some of them are half right. Part of that site is still under construction. The other part has been open since last fall, running a full slate of programming, and most residents have no idea it has a name.

That name is Founders Park, and the gap between what it already offers and what people think they are seeing says something worth understanding if you live here: Hempfield's recreation footprint has been quietly doubling, and the township has done almost nothing to make sure you noticed.

The Park Everyone Has Half-Noticed

Founders Park sits on land the township bought from Excela Health in 2021, a 43-acre parcel off Weatherwood Lane. Only 14 of those acres became the park. The rest is being built out as a municipal complex that will eventually house fire department headquarters, the Hempfield Emergency Management Agency, and ambulance bays operated in partnership with Mutual Aid. That is the piece still behind the fence. The park itself, Phase I, was completed in the fall of 2025 and has been open ever since.

A TribLive report from this spring captured the exact confusion this creates. One Irwin resident visiting for the township's Founders Festival put it plainly: she had seen the site from Route 30 all along but "didn't know what it was." She is not an outlier. The park was built to serve three communities at once, Hempfield Township, Greensburg, and South Greensburg, according to the township's own park page, which means a lot of people driving past it every day live just outside the township line and have even less reason to know what is happening there.

Two Parks, By the Numbers

Hempfield has had one flagship park for years. Founders Park is the newer, smaller sibling, and the two serve different parts of the township in different ways.

The numbers on Hempfield Park's own page and the pickleball court listings for the complex confirm what longtime residents already sense: Hempfield Park has been the default for a decade. Founders Park is the first real alternative, and it opened without much fanfare.

What's Actually Running Right Now

If you have not been to Founders Park yet, here is what has been open since last fall:

• A nature-inspired playground with grass huts and climbing rocks
• A splash pad that recirculates its own water down into an interactive brook
• An outdoor fitness zone and obstacle course
• A yoga deck
• Pavilions and walking trails

And as of this summer, there is a reason to go on a specific day of the week. The township launched the Founders Market this year, a farmers market held every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. at 889 Weatherwood Lane, running from June 2 through September 29, according to the township's events page. With the season running that late into fall, there are still eight Tuesdays left before it wraps on September 29, which makes this one of the more time-sensitive things happening in the township right now rather than a standing fixture people have already worked into their routines.

The park also hosted its first Founders Festival this May, a weekend built around a movie night, a 5K, a rubber duck race benefiting the Friends of Hempfield Parks, and a hot air balloon glow followed by fireworks. Parks and recreation director Marissa Haynes described the site to TribLive as "an incredible asset for our community, and our neighboring communities." The festival also recognized Rachel King as the inaugural recipient of the township's new Hempfield Community Action Award, and construction on the next phase is being supported in part by a contribution from Sendell Motors alongside two state grants.

The Pickleball Math Nobody Has Done Yet

Here is where the numbers actually tell you something. Hempfield currently has 14 pickleball courts total: 8 outdoors at Hempfield Park and 6 indoors at the Athletic Complex. Founders Park's Phase II is set to add 8 more outdoor courts. That does not just add capacity, it doubles the township's outdoor pickleball supply on its own, and it pushes the total township-wide count to 22 courts once complete.

For a sport that has exploded in participation nationally over the past few years, that is a meaningful shift in where people will be playing five years from now. Right now, if you want an outdoor court on a weekend, Hempfield Park is your only option in the township. Within a couple of years, that will no longer be true, and the east-central side of the township will have its own outdoor courts for the first time.

What Phase II Actually Changes

Last fall, when WPXI covered the park welcoming its first visitors, Haynes described Phase II as bringing a turf field, a natural grass field, the municipal complex, eight pickleball courts, and two additional walking trails. The bid documents currently posted on the township's website for synthetic turf and sports lighting at Founders Park confirm that work is now moving forward. At this spring's Founders Festival, Haynes gave the clearest timeline yet, telling TribLive that work on the turf, pickleball courts, parking, and trails is anticipated to take about two years to complete, which puts a realistic finish around 2028.

Back when the park first opened last fall, officials told WPXI the project had been funded through the general fund, state grants, and fundraising, without a tax increase. Whether that same mix carries Phase II to completion is not yet public information, but the township has been consistent so far about pairing state grants with local contributions rather than raising taxes to get these projects done.

Why This Is Worth Knowing If You Live Here

Hempfield Township covers 76.8 square miles, and the practical effect of that size is that most residents build their routines around whichever side of the township they live on. If you are used to Hempfield Park because it has been the obvious choice for years, it is easy to miss that a second park has opened four miles away with a genuinely different set of amenities, its own weekly market, and its own festival calendar. The confusion captured in that TribLive quote is not a small thing. It is the accurate description of a township mid-transition, where the recreation map on paper does not match the one most people are carrying around in their heads yet.

That gap will close eventually, once Phase II is finished and the site stops looking like a construction zone from Route 30. Until then, the more useful move is simpler: if you have not driven down Weatherwood Lane yet, the splash pad, the brook, and the Tuesday market are already worth the five minutes it takes to find out what you have been looking at all along.

If you are weighing what a neighborhood like Hempfield Township actually offers day to day, beyond what shows up in a listing description, Nikaela Connelly can walk you through what local life here really looks like, park system included. Reach out to schedule a free consultation whenever you are ready to talk specifics.