By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Work on a downtown skate park across from City Hall won’t kick off until the spring, backers say.

“The good news is, it should be open by mid-August so the kids can use it next fall,” said Pat Butler, one of the organizers of the Skate Lewiston Auburn Movement.

SLAM had hoped to begin work on the park just after Labor Day and to continue through October, then resume in the spring and wrap up early in the summer.

Instead, work will begin mid-April.

“It’s a 14-week cycle, no matter what,” Butler said. “We didn’t want to rush it, so we decided to wait and do it in one shot.”

The group is scheduled to unveil detailed plans at a Sept. 29 meeting designed to get young skaters involved again.

“It’s been a long summer, and we’ve let them have some time off,” Butler said. The group has raised $194,000, including a $20,000 endowment to pay for ongoing maintenance at the park, but is still about $75,000 short of total costs.

“We’re hoping this will be the push to get the kids back, engaged and focused, so we’re all focused and ready to go by April 15,” Butler said.

Designs show a skate park on 12,000 square feet of seamless concrete in Kennedy Park along Park Street and north of the swimming pool. The southern third of the park would have a 9-foot-deep, canyon-like bowl, with steep walls. The rest features street-like obstacles – rails, curbs, ramps, benches, ledges and pyramids.