Academy Park comfort station nearing reopening, but not sufficient for larger park events

By Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

Academy Park’s comfort station is set to reopen in early July, following completion of a four-wall mural and surfacing of the adjacent bike path.

“Right now, there’s a safety issue, because there’s a lip around the (side of the building), because of the bike path. It’s like a construction site,” Mayor Anne Welch said Tuesday.

Department of Public Works Superintendent Larry Wills noted the painting and paving have delayed him in reopening the public bathrooms. In addition, “After the concrete was poured around the bathroom, we put a very large amount of topsoil around the whole perimeter of that building. We wanted the grass to grow in so they wouldn’t track mud into the new building,” he said.

In mid-May, the DPW dug out a strip of green space on the park’s east side, across from DiMino’s Lewiston Tops, to accommodate the trail that now enters the village at Seneca and South Ninth streets and extends down to Mohawk Street and over to River Road.

That area was fenced and has narrowed the immediate path to the comfort station.

Paving in phases

Wills said the paving process has to be done like this, in phases, because of what the job requires.

“I had to get that dug out (weeks before paving), and I wanted to get it pounded in with the roller and make sure there’s no low spots that were going to drop,” he explained. “And then we recoated it again and then rolled it again.

“And the main reason why it’s not paved yet is because … we all share the same paver. So, those guys are finishing (in the towns of Wheatfield and Lewiston), and then they’re coming down here. But in the meantime, I have to make sure that I’m ready to go when they do come in.”

“If I had my own equipment and we weren’t trying to operate a whole municipality, between grass-cutting and festivals and garbage pickup and house calls that we have to do for water and sewer, and inspections, and all this other stuff we have to do. You know, I have to do stuff way ahead of time to make sure that I’m ready to go for when the paver does come in town,” Wills added.

When the bathrooms do reopen, they will be available from 6 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. daily. They are not open 24 hours because “we used to have a lot of vandalism problems overnight in those bathrooms,” Wills said. “So, there’s going to be timers installed on the doors. And then we usually, four to five days a week, we check all the bathrooms.”

Uneven surfaces will be remedied before the bathrooms reopen.

••••••••

Facilities not sufficient

At last week’s Village of Lewiston Board meeting, Fire Inspector Barry Beebe said events at Academy Park drawing more than 150 people would require extra toilets.

Clerk Shannon Fundis said her office has instructed event organizers to rent additional portable restrooms.

Welch reiterated that requirement.

“When you rent the place for whatever function you have, you’re supposed to have porta-potties to handle it,” she said.

Tops owner Anthony DiMino financed the relocation and expansion of the Academy Park bandshell and also donated money for the pavilion project. He said it’s frustrating to know the comfort station isn’t sufficient for larger events – even more so when park patrons cross Ninth Street to use his store’s bathrooms.

DiMino said the bathroom building is basically of no help, then, except for people using the bike path. “It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

In renovating the comfort station, Wills said, “There was only so much money to work with to begin with, and only so much grant money to work with. And the other thing is, we had to knock a stall off on the men’s and women’s to expand them, to make them (Americans with Disabilities Act)-compliant, when it comes to wheelchairs. So, the stalls are bigger. There’s one less stall on each side, but the stalls are bigger now.

“The building is only so big, and there was only so much money to work with. So, at the time, it was either tear the building down and have no bathrooms at all, or at least have (some) bathrooms.”

He explained, “That bathroom was only designed for the baseball diamond years ago, decades ago. The building was built just for the baseball diamond that was right there, that used to be there for years. Because there was no facilities up there. Basically, for a baseball game or something like that, that’s kind of what it was set up. That’s why the building is the size that it is.

“Lewiston has grown a lot since those days of baseball diamonds at the ballpark. So, that’s kind of the size we have to work with. Whether the board wants to expand later down the road, I don’t know; we haven’t really talked a whole lot about it.

“I did put a sewer line in behind the bandshell about two years ago, just in case there was funds available to put a bathroom over there by the bandshell. So, there’s one on the opposite side of the park.”

Welch said she wanted to have new bathrooms included with the to-be-built pavilion, but there was not necessary funding made available to the village.

“I can only do with what I have,” she said. “And like I say, every time we have a festival or whatever, we make people get porta-potties because our sewage system can’t handle all that.”

“I mean, I would love it if we had brand-new restrooms up there, but we don’t – and we still have the antiquated (infrastructure) system that can’t handle it all,” she added.