LEWISTON – Overgrown, trash-strewn and encircled with a new chain-link fence, the corner of Maple and Park streets looks like so many other vacant lots.

Only this one was a neighborhood park.

Emptied of its playground equipment late last year, as the city prepared to demolish the nearby Ritz Cafe building, the park has been in limbo ever since.

The property may be sold, redeveloped for the construction of affordable housing or returned to its former status as a pristine park.

Until that decision is made, probably sometime next year, city leaders plan to do nothing with the property, said Phil Nadeau, Lewiston’s deputy city administrator.

“We learned a long time ago to keep our options open,” Nadeau said. “We know we control the site. We just don’t know what’s going to happen in that neighborhood, yet.”

The park had been a downtown showpiece, rehabilitated only five years ago.

Donations totaling nearly $10,000 – from Rotarians, the Kiwanis Club, students from St. Dominic Regional High School and the city itself – covered the dirt surface with grass and wood chips. They added new climbing toys, benches and trash receptacles.

The equipment is currently in city storage, Nadeau said.

Some neighbors want it back where it was. Along the chain-link fence, someone has hung a banner reading “Rebuild Our Park.”

“It was a lot more convenient with the park right there,” said a woman named Thea, who lives across the street with children ages 2, 8 and 11 years old. “Now everybody has to walk over to Kennedy Park. The equipment there is in shambles and there aren’t always swings available.”

Thea said her youngest children liked to play on the swings while her 11-year-old son could entertain himself on the slides and monkey bars.

Sister Claire Lepage, who represents the local Visible Community group, said the park has been sorely missed, particularly by families with young children.

The Visible Community is a nonprofit group, consisting of people who live inside and outside Lewiston’s downtown, that has been fighting development in the area.

The uncertainty of the park’s fate bothers the group, Lepage said.

“We think the residents deserve an answer about what’s happening,” she said.

Even the people who live in the area without young children recognize the loss of recreation for the many kids in the neighborhood.

“There are a lot of kids around here and their parents don’t always want to go way over to Kennedy Park,” said Cindy Bennett, who lives on Maple Street. “It was good when they could play right here. It would be nice to get the park back.”

Nadeau, who has lived in the downtown and owned properties in the neighborhood, said he is sympathetic to the concerns.

“My roots are here,” he said, but a decision about the park will need to wait.

“It’s not going to happen this year,” he said.