Plans for a long-awaited amphitheater at Victory Park in Slatington are coming to fruition.

The Slatington Borough council voted unanimously to approve the plans presented by the Northern Lehigh Recreation Authority in a special meeting Monday night.

“We have been looking forward to this for a long time,” said Lindsay Taylor, the executive director of the Northern Lehigh Recreation Authority. The project has been in the works since before 2015.

The amphitheater will be a prefabricated structure by Cedar Forest Products in West Olive, Michigan. Willow Playworks in Mifflinburg is handling the management of the project, Taylor said. They will excavate the ground, install the concrete pad and erect the amphitheater when it arrives in sections. It will take about 12 weeks for the shipment to arrive, she said. Construction will start sometime in April, as soon as conditions allow.

“We’re hoping it all goes well,” Taylor said.

The Angelo Scarselletti Amphitheater will be a three-sided structure made out of yellow cedar and pine. It will be positioned at the base of the hill with a walking path nearby. Taylor said they do not have to put in any terraced seating, because the slope will provide a natural area for people to sit on blankets and watch a performance.

The amphitheater is to be about 46 feet wide, 26 feet deep and 15 feet tall at its lowest point. The roof will be slanted to a peak and will be covered in asphalt shingles.

The recreation authority received two grants from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, one for $33,000 and $30,000. Lehigh County donated $35,000, and the 150th and Beyond Committee donated $31,204.

The total cost of the project is expected to be $129,204, and all of the money has been raised for it.

The prefabricated structure costs $51,875 and installation costs $29,750. Additional expenses include $2,000 for a walking path, $7,500 for excavation, $9,925 for the concrete pad, $10,000 for the construction management, and $18,154 is being held for any unanticipated expenses.

Slatington Borough Manager Dan Stevens said, “We’re going to help them out by putting in the walking path.”

“(The amphitheater) will be a wonderful addition to Victory Park,” Taylor said.

Come summer, the recreation authority is hoping to have a Food Truck Festival on July 24 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Victory Park and dedicate the amphitheater.

“We’re hoping for a really good party this July,” she said.

The amphitheater is being named after the late Angelo Scarselletti, who was a music teacher for the award-winning Slatington High School Marching Band, then later as a band and chorus director for the Northern Lehigh Junior High School.

Scarselletti passed away in 2010 at the age of 90. His obituary stated he was a musician in a Navy band during World War II and listed numerous accomplishments and memberships in community organizations. Some of these included being one of the organizers of the Lehigh County High School Band Master Association, conductor of the Lehighton Men’s Band and the Allentown Bethlehem Men’s Barber Shop Chorus, and as a trumpet player with a four-piece combo called Ali Baba and His Four Tea Thieves Minus One.