Rocky Neck and Harkness Memorial state parks are among the recipients of $15 million authorized Friday by the state Bond Commission for improvements.

The commission approved $1.5 million for upgrades to utilities and the pavilion at Rocky Neck State Park in East Lyme. Waterford’s Harkness Memorial State Park will receive $750,000 for maintenance and renovations.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Services, which oversees state parks, forests and wildlife management areas, also received $10 million to provide open space grants for conservation and recreation purposes and $9 million to support improvement and expansion of recreational trails, bikeways, greenways and pedestrian walkways.

State Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, and state Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, lauded the parks as recreational and cultural destinations in a news release.

Cheeseman invoked the 90-year history of the state park in East Lyme.

“These funds to support utility upgrades and rehabilitation of the historic depression era (Works Progress Administration) built pavilion will ensure people will be able to continue enjoying Rocky Neck for decades to come,” she said.

The 356-foot-long, curved-stone Ellie Mitchell Pavilion was built with supporting timbers fashioned from trees cut from each of Connecticut’s state parks and forests. Completed in 1936 by the federal Works Progress Administration as the state’s largest Depression-era building, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.