LEWISTON — The name of a charitable foundation will go on the scoreboard when the new and improved Franklin Pasture football field is built, hopefully in 2014.

The Timothy Mynahan Foundation is donating $25,000 to help improve the 110-acre sports complex at Lewiston High School, Franklin Pasture Fundraising Committee Chairman Paul Amnott announced Friday at a City Hall news conference.

The foundation is named for Timothy Mynahan, the 1988 Lewiston High valedictorian who died in a 1991 motor vehicle accident. The foundation was among dozens of sponsors announced Friday as project leaders said the campaign to build a state-of-the-art complex is off to a good start.

“I feel very optimistic,” said Jason Fuller, Lewiston High School athletic director and a Franklin Pasture trustee. “In the last couple of weeks it’s picked up steam. We’ve generated a lot of sponsorships. The project is starting to take off.”

The long-term goal is to invest $3.4 million to create exceptional athletic fields at the school. The complex would include a main field with artificial turf for football and soccer and a second artificial-turf field for football and lacrosse. The project would include improved softball, field hockey and baseball fields, more bleacher space, new concession buildings with inside restrooms instead of portables, high-tech lights, sound systems and scoreboards, and tennis courts with amenities such as wind screens.

Planners are working on $1.8 million worth of improvements for phase one, which will resurface tennis courts, install artificial turf on the main football/soccer field, and provide better seating and two improved concession buildings with restrooms.

Forty percent of the phase one money — $755,220 — has been secured, Amnott said. Of that amount, some $500,000 came from city taxpayers, the rest from corporate sponsors and individual donors.

The tennis courts will be done this summer. Fuller hopes construction on the football field and concession buildings can begin in the spring of 2014, “if we get the $1.8 million.”

Corporate sponsors who have signed up, so far, include Harriman architects, Central Maine Endodontics, Martin’s Point Health Care, Great Lakes Fulfillment, Lewiston Municipal Federal Credit Union, Summit Geoengineering, Argo Marketing Group, Fontaine Family real estate, Allen Manufacturing, Gippers Sports Grill, Faire Bande a Part Housing Cooperative, Longhorn Steakhouse, Martindale Country Club and Federal Distributors.

Donating organzations represent booster clubs, sports groups, school and City Hall employees. Another 26 people or families have also given money to the project.

One way money is being raised is by selling entryway bricks bearing the names of individuals who donated $500.

“If Lewiston alumni bought one brick, that would go a long way,” Amnott said.

Fuller said people are excited about having a football/soccer field where games can be played 10 months of the year, where no one will be told they can’t play all summer because grass has to grow. People are excited about having a complex large enough to host state championships of all types, bringing people to town to fill motels and restaurants, he said.

A bigger, better complex isn’t just about athletics, Lewiston Recreation Director Maggie Chisholm said. All kinds of youth teams and seniors will be able to use the facility.

“This is about playing, about health and wellness, about education,” Chisholm said. She called the future Franklin Pasture complex “100 acres of wonder” and “future amazing activity for our community.”

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