By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A new skate park will move southeast along Park Street as city leaders begin working on paying for a revamped Kennedy Park.

Councilors approved a master plan Tuesday that calls for $3 million worth of work at the park over 10 years. That would include new landscaping, refurbished park walkways, a relocated gazebo and Civil War monument, and the return of a central fountain in three phases.

But it’s just a plan. It doesn’t say how the city will pay for those improvements or how quickly they’ll come.

“The council is going to vote on each and every step of this as it comes along,” said City Administrator Jim Bennett. “This doesn’t allocate any money or force the city to do anything. It shows the general direction you want things to go.”

The City Council should see the first phase in the next few months, however. That should involve changes to the southeast corner, now home to two basketball courts, a playground and swimming pool. Plans call for moving those around to make room for a skate park.

The Skate Lewiston Auburn Movement hopes to break ground on its $230,000 concrete skate park this spring, as soon as the weather allows.

Councilors agreed last summer to let area skateboarders build their skate park farther north along Pine Street, across from City Hall. But that was before councilors commissioned the master plan.