By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A downtown skate park would go beside the basketball courts and swimming pools at Kennedy Park, instead of being set apart on its own.

That’s one of the preliminary recommendations of the Kennedy Park Master Plan Committee. Chairwoman Alyson Stone said the committee will present two possible concepts for the park at a special meeting Wednesday. Both would include the skate park with the park’s other active uses.

Current plans put the skateboarding area on Park Street, in the middle of Kennedy Park. But the master plan would move it to the lower corner of the park.

“The feeling is that that corner might be a better place, both for the skate park and for the park as a whole,” Stone said.

The committee began meeting in August. Through interviews and surveys, the group learned that the park is popular with both the young and the old, but for different reasons. Young people like the swimming pool, the playground and the basketball courts, and they’re looking forward to the skate park.

Senior citizens enjoy the quieter parts of the park: the trees, flowers and walkways. And they enjoy watching the youngsters at play, Stone said. They’re looking forward to the skate park almost as much as the young, just for the opportunity to be spectators.

Plans also call for installing more benches and planting more trees.

“One of the things people really like about the park is the combination of passive and active recreation,” Stone said. “What the city needs to do is keep that balance and reconfigure the more active parts so they don’t take away from the passive beauty.”

That could mean reconfiguring the southwestern corner of the park, where Spruce and Park streets meet. The committee’s plans shift the swimming pool and basketball courts to make room for the skate park. That leaves the other three-quarters of the park wide open, much the same as it is today.

The Skate Lewiston-Auburn Movement, the group backing the new skate park, is set to begin digging in April in a different spot, farther north along Park Street about midway between Spruce and Pine streets.

Stone, who’s also a member of the SLAM board, said moving the skate park bowl might work better. The current space is surrounded by trees, and their roots run throughout the site. Digging there could hurt the trees.

“And that specific spot is one of the few really flat spaces in the park, and kids like to gather there to play soccer,” Stone said. “We don’t really want to take that away.”

The group will take public comment on both plans before making a final recommendation to the City Council in January.