Volunteers, businesses unite to give Auburn’s Festival Plaza a place for performances.
AUBURN – Before the concrete was poured and the steel welded, Bill Kelley made a trip to the craft store.
In the basement of his home, he came up with a plan to do what the city couldn’t afford: build a band shell for the riverside Festival Plaza.
“I guess I felt that I had an idea that would work,” said Kelley, Auburn’s construction inspector and manager. “Maybe I did it because I could.”
A band shell had been part of the plaza’s plan since its inception in 1999. However, when the project was budgeted in 2000 and the total costs were tallied, the shell was put off.
Kelley, who oversaw the plaza’s construction the next year, never forgot it, though.
He heard the complaints from performers about the sound on plaza, located in the acoustically murky area between close brick walls and the wide-open spaces of the Androscoggin River.
So, Kelley searched the Internet and made some calls. Estimates for a band shell came in at more than $30,000. That was too much.
Then, he came up with his idea. In a semicircle, Kelley would erect nine steel poles, each resembling the much larger poles that hold aloft the plaza’s signature canopies. Fabric would then link the poles, creating the shell’s wall.
He made his model. Then, he asked for help.
On the city’s highway crew, he found Warren Libby, an experienced welder. Together, they altered the plan.
“Between Warren’s talent and my off-the-wall ideas, we got this thing off the ground,” Kelley said.
Time passed. Plans, begun in early 2004, evolved. More people volunteered.
With the aid of city crews, Libby fabricated the poles from raw steel. They used the fabric from a torn canopy to bridge the poles.
The shell first appeared early last summer. It’s been changing, though. The fabric has been replaced by panels of a plastic and wood composite, reminiscent of some kitchen cutting boards. Lights appeared last month after musicians noted that they had trouble seeing their sheet music. The floor, which is bordered with discarded granite curbing, was created this spring.
“I don’t want to give the impression that I did this alone,” Kelley said, standing in the center of the shell Thursday morning.
Beneath his feet sat 10 cubic yards of brick dust, crushed by Auburn manufacturer Morin Brick Co. and donated by Kurt Youland of K&K Excavation of Turner.
So far, the city has purchased about $4,700 in supplies, said Sid Hazelton, the city’s assistant public works director. Meanwhile, Mechanics Savings Bank has given the project a grant.
It has been almost two years of work. Yet, Kelley has never seen anyone use the shell.
“Music bounces off these panels,” he said, knocking on the inside of the shell and pausing as if he can follow the sound as it drifts away.
“I’ve got to hear it for myself,” he said.
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