LEWISTON – With a little luck and $75,000 in cash donations, local skaters could have their own Kennedy Park skate ramps by mid-November.
Backers of the park will bring their pitch and the latest design sketches to Lewiston High School on Tuesday night to update the skaters, their parents and city officials.
Pat Butler, one of the parent/members of Skate Auburn Lewiston Movement, said they hope to begin work in August. Before they can, however, they need to get approval from the city Planning Board and raise some more money.
“We feel good enough now that we thought we’d better pull the trigger,” Butler said. “If we don’t, we won’t get started until next summer.”
Skate Park designer Sam Batterson has finished preliminary sketches for the 12,000-square-foot park in Kennedy Park, along Park Street and north of the public swimming pool.
Organizers favor semi-recessed designs similar to popular parks in Fitchburg, Mass., and Newberg, Ore. Those parks are recessed, like swimming pools. Builders add ramps, bowls and other features. Then everything is coated with concrete.
Butler said the park is slightly smaller than first planned. Batterson cut 3,000 square feet from the design and that made it fit better into the park.
“It also reduced the cost, a little,” he said. “It’s still huge, and I think it has a real nice flow.”
Butler estimates the total cost at $269,000. The group has raised about half of that and has asked for another $40,000 in grants from local businesses. The rest, about $75,000 in cash and in-kind contributions, is still waiting.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re meeting now,” he said. “It’s time for the kids to get out and get involved now.”
He hopes local skaters come forward and begin organizing bottle drives, car washes and other fund-raisers to help pay for the park.
The park is the second planned for the Twin Cities. Auburn is expected to open its own skate park in the old tennis courts off Chestnut Street next spring. That would be a much less ambitious park, featuring pavement and portable ramps. The cost is estimated at about $76,000.
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