LEWISTON — A new plan to save Kennedy Park’s iconic gazebo and bandstand calls for keeping it roughly where it is but lowering it by about 3 feet.

Problems finding sponsors and donors to help pay for $260,000 in renovations prompted a committee seeking to save the structure to back off from their initial plans.

“Now, it will cost about $160,000 and probably closer to $150,000,” said Bill Clifford, chairman of the Kennedy Park Bandstand Restoration Committee. “We are about $30,000 away from making that goal now. Lowering the price makes it easier to do the project.”

The gazebo’s height always had been part of the problem, Clifford said.

The new plan calls for building one similar to the park’s 1925 gazebo, but just shorter: The 1925 gazebo’s floor was about 5 feet off of the ground and the new gazebo floor will be about 2 feet off the ground. The old roof will be moved onto the new structure when the work is done.

“In those days, they didn’t have the Americans with Disabilities Act so they didn’t have to worry about ramping around the structure,” he said.

The Americans With Disabilities Act requires the city to build wheelchair-accessible structures so everyone can use them. Ramps and elevators proved to be costly, and the group hoped to move the gazebo to take advantage of the park’s natural slope.

That plan called for building a new structure at the eastern edge of the park, near the intersection of Bates and Walnut streets. That would have used the park’s downward slope from Bates Street to let users walk onto the gazebo itself, but would have let the structure still stand tall over the rest of the park. The gazebo’s old roof would have topped that new structure.

That project would have cost an estimated $260,000, and Clifford said the group had hoped local businesses, doctors and lawyers would step forward to sponsor the renovations.

“We didn’t get any major sponsors,” he said. “We didn’t get a lot of the people we thought we’d get. We didn’t get many doctors — very few — and we got some lawyers, but not as many as we anticipated.”

The project also depends on $75,000 in federal block grant money set aside by the Lewiston City Council. According to a June 2013 decision, the group needs to raise $2 for every $1 the city commits.

Councilors voted last week to approve the smaller gazebo and lessen the group’s fundraising needs. Now the group needs to match the city’s contribution dollar for dollar.

The gazebo has been closed and fenced off since 2010 due to safety concerns — damage to the concrete floor of the structure as well as erosion on the brick supports and wear on the wooden columns and the wood structure under the roof.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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