LINCOLN, Maine — Town officials are working to provide utilities to a 10.6-acre plot off Route 6 as part of a renewed effort to build a regional recreation center, they said Tuesday.
Jeremy Weatherbee, the town’s cemetery, parks and recreation supervisor, is negotiating with several landowners near Mattanawcook Academy for rights of way for water and sewer service to the town-owned site, which is just west of White Point Estates Road.
The water and sewer line extension could come through Route 6, or if cheaper, through woods separating the site from the high school, Weatherbee said.
In addition to being needed for center construction, the negotiations show that town officials are serious about the idea, Weatherbee said.
The center plan “has been relatively dormant over the past four or five years, with not a whole lot going on,” Weatherbee said. “People aren’t as likely to donate to the cause [unless it is vigorously pursued]. If we get water and sewer to the lot, it might open some donors’ eyes.”
The initiative gained new life when a Town Council committee on economic development issued a report last summer calling the center’s development a key element in expanding the town’s economy.
Such a center, committee members said, would make Lincoln a more attractive investment for new residents and businesses by enhancing the town’s quality of life.
Lincoln officials have been working for several years on different plans to maintain the town’s economy and offset the region’s population losses by attracting younger people. Town government built a recreation path between the high school and the center site last year as part of plans to make the acreage more useful.
No one expects the center to happen soon. A 2006 estimate of its cost called for $6.7 million, but a recreation center building committee had reduced that cost by several million dollars by looking at more affordable components, officials said.
In February 2011, the council appointed a subcommittee charged with overseeing the center’s development. The initiative died soon after.
Town government has raised more than $400,000 to build a center and its officials would seek to offset construction costs by applying for grants, said Ruth Birtz, the town’s economic development coordinator.
The 10.6-acre field is already used for youth football practices and a 12-plot community garden. Town officials put in lights for a skating pond there, but that initiative died from lack of interest, Weatherbee said.
Lincoln resident Denise Kusnierz has volunteered to lead the center design and fundraising efforts with Weatherbee. Anyone interested in joining the effort or contributing can contact them through Weatherbee’s office or the town website.
Kusnierz describes herself as a newcomer to Lincoln, having moved to town about five years ago, but said she looks forward to the challenge.
“She is really just getting started and her biggest accomplishment to this point is getting it back to the forefront and getting it on people’s radar and getting council’s support to move forward with it,” Weatherbee said. “It is a big project and the dollar amount is at first glance a little bit daunting.”