Ambler Parks

This planning effort celebrates Ambler’s existing parks & recreation facilities and looks to set the Park System up for future success. Building on the adoption of the Borough’s Open Space Plan Update in November 2019, this storymap seeks to make specific recommendations for improvements to amenities and programming at individual parks to better serve the needs of borough residents. This plan furthers these implementation items by soliciting park-specific stakeholder participation and feedback, and prioritizing improvements for each park.

Ambler Borough's Planning Commission, with support from Borough Staff and the Montgomery County Planning Commission, examined three things:

1) What's in the parks? We conducted a detailed inventory of existing amenities, uses, and challenges in the parks.

2) What do people want? We conducted public outreach to find out what residents want to stay the same, and what residents want to change or add.

3) What's next for parks in Ambler? We analyzed the existing conditions and public feedback and created a set of recommendations for the future of Ambler's parks and open space.

This storymap summarizes what we learned from this process and can be used as a resource for budgeting and improving parks in the future.

Broadly speaking, we found that the borough is not in need of major changes in how the park areas are used or what is in them. The changes recommended are primarily improvements that enhance the existing spaces; many of them can be made gradually over time. Recommendations for the plan are for both capital improvements – physical objects with a fixed cost, and non-capital items. The non-capital items include policy changes, programming, management, and maintenance. Capital improvements may apply to many parks or just to a few specific parks.

The map shows a general inventory of all parks and open spaces owned by Ambler borough, as well as nearby parks that are outside of the borough.

Ambler Borough has a remarkable number of parks and open spaces for its size. There are 11 parks or open spaces that total approximately 25.4 acres of borough-owned land. These are categorized as large parks (4), small parks (4), and open spaces (3).

Community engagement was the foundation of this planning effort. The project then issued an online survey and held a series of public workshops to gather public input into desired improvements. In addition, online presentations were developed for specific parks and allowed respondents to indicate on a map where they wanted specific improvements. This effort was designed to meet the needs of the busy lifestyles of the community and to maximize the breadth and depth of the input gathered.

In September of 2021, the Borough opened a digital and paper survey to allow the community to provide detailed input on the parks system and all individual parks. The survey was sent out via email, linked on the Ambler Borough website Parks and Recreation page, and printed copies were provided at Borough Hall.  Additionally, promotional material with QR codes linking to the digital version of the survey were posted in the borough. The survey remained open through May 2022 and received 129 responses.

Beginning in November 2020, the Ambler Planning Commission hosted a series of virtual workshops to obtain resident feedback on each park. Focused on a different park each month, residents shared what they liked most and where they felt improvements were needed.

Continuing through March of 2021, the workshops included brief presentations on each park including the location, existing recreation amenities, as well as park access and wayfinding. Residents provided feedback on the current active and passive recreation amenities to the Planning Commissioners, including their vision for specific improvements at each individual park. Additionally, if residents were unable to attend the workshop, a copy of the presentation for each park workshop and a link to an online digital message board was provided online via a link on the Borough Website for residents to provide any additional feedback. The schedule of workshops was as follows:

• November 24, 2020: Knight Park (12 residents made comments, many more in attendance, 2 online comments)
• December 22, 2020: Pickering Field (15 residents made comments, many more in attendance, 1 online comment)
• January 26, 2021: Ricciardi Park (10 residents made comments, many more in attendance, 1 online comment
• February 23, 2021: Ambler Borough Park, Edgewood Preserve, Tennis Avenue Open Space, Tennis/Spring Garden Triangle (unknown number of resident comments, no online comments)
• March 23, 2021: Wahl Park, Ambler Square, Locust Street Park, Jean Thompson Park (unknown number of resident comments, no online comments)

Below are several categories of recommendations. First, non-capital recommendations such as policies or programs, are summarized. Following that are two sections of capital items that are not specific to any one park.

The next set of recommendations are financial investments in physical improvements that may be located in any or all of the parks.

This first set of items are those that would be added to one or two parks if desired. These are larger items that would be more significant investments. Once the overall decision is made to invest in the item, a second stage of the decision about where to locate it will need to be made. The decision of where to locate these items will depend on how many of them are planned.

This second set of items are those that are likely needed at many if not all parks. Note that the items here are not generally repeated under individual parks in the sections below.

Ambler's four largest parks make up 89% of the park and open space acreage in the borough. Borough Park is a passive, naturalized open space, while the other three large parks provide primarily active recreation. Pickering Field is the only one of these parks that does not have some type of walking trail or pathway.

The largest park in Ambler, Borough Park is also the most passive park of the public access parks. Borough Park is a great place for bird watching and escaping into nature.

Several high priority items were identified for Borough Park, primarily focused on access. Other recommendations cover environmental issues and amenities. While the public outreach did not indicate a desire for additional active recreation amenities in Borough Park, the existing swings are popular and an upgrade to those swings as well as a few benches, especially near the swings, were requested by the community.

As Ambler's second-largest park, Knight Park has many different activities and uses, and may have room for additions to the park or changes to some of the existing uses.

There are no high priority recommendations for Knight Park, but general recommendations focus on an overall assessment of how the park is used and how that could change in the future. Knight Park is a likely location for new amenities to the park system, if those are added (see General Recommendations, Capital Improvements).

Pickering Field is a very actively used park rimmed with beautiful mature trees. The park has four ball fields which are used for baseball, softball, basketball, and soccer. Restrooms, a concession stand, and a playground are packed into the southeast corner of the park. On game days there's quite a lot going on here!

Some high priority items as well as other recommendations were developed for Pickering Field. Many of them recommendations for this park focus on safety for park users.

A well-utilized park, Ricciardi Park draws users for a variety of purposes. Ricciardi Park has entrances on four sides and is well-connected to surrounding neighborhoods. The courts are used by pickleball players, hockey players, and kids on wheeled toys such as tricycles and scooters. Ongoing monitoring of the way the space is used may be helpful to ensure different constituencies are all able to get their recreation needs met.

Totaling only 1.5 acres in size, Ambler's small parks play a significant role in recreation access for the community. Even the smallest of these, Wahl Playground, is heavily utilized by the neighborhood.

Recommendations for small parks were primarily for Wahl Playground and Locust Street Park. There were no recommendations for Ambler Square and no top priority recommendations for these parks. Some opportunities exist at Locust Street Park for new amenities or enhancement of the environmental and natural features of the park.

The only top priority recommendation is for Tennis Avenue.

Ambler's parks are a wonderful asset to the borough, well-loved and utilized by the community. In general, the parks are already functioning well for the Ambler Community. Borough Council and staff should continue the conversation about parks and work gradually on improvements for safety, comfort, greening, and recreation opportunities as requested by the community. The priority recommendations are summarized in the table below.

To review Ambler's 2019 Open Space Plan, visit:  Open Space Plan Update (boroughofambler.com). 

To find out more about Parks and Recreation in Ambler, see:  Parks & Recreation (boroughofambler.com). 

If you have questions, comments, or other inquiries for the borough, please visit the  Borough of Ambler's website  or email manager@borough.ambler.pa.us.