WESTBROOK — The Westbrook Community Center is a hot bed of activity winter, spring, summer and fall, but activity will lessen later this month when some programs are disrupted as the parking lot gets paved.

The project will include repaving, and re-striping the entire parking lot, as well as expanding the lot toward the soccer field on the west side of the building.

“This project is desperately needed to improve the parking surface as well as provide more parking supply to meet a growing demand,” Public Services Director Eric Dudley said in a correspondence to councilors. 

Dudley also said the asphalt sidewalks along the front and east sides of the property will be replaced with concrete. Paving work is set to begin Monday, Aug. 20, and wrap up Monday, Sept. 3. The parking expansion was set to be completed this week.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said the lot was last paved when the building was home to Wescott Junior High School, which moved to the existing Westbrook Middle School in 2010.

The project, he said, was scheduled to take place during downtime, as community services and the Seals swim program transition from summer programming to fall programming.

“They scheduled it at a time when the biggest programs were not happening,” he said.

The summer camp program at the Community Center ends Friday, Aug. 17.

“With school beginning in late August, we usually take a week and a half, two weeks to transition into our fall programming. This was a natural time to make this happen,” said Acting Community Services Director Greg Post.

Community service programming and classes have been canceled during the time the work is being done, except for Train Your Inner Athlete and Silver Cardio, which have been relocated to the Westbrook Housing gymnasium on Foster Street.

Post said the community services department will still be open, as will the general assistance department and Global Premier Soccer Maine. Woodfords Family Services programming in the building will not be impacted, but drop-off and pickup and parking will take place at Congin Elementary School next door. Since the building will have limited access, employees and visitors will have to use alternate parking locations and entrances to get to and from the building.

A number of tenants have decided to temporarily close until the work is completed. Cornelia’s Closet, a thrift shop in the front of the building, will close from Aug. 20 to Sept. 3, and the Westbrook Food Pantry will reopen Sept. 4. The Westbrook Historical Society, which operates out of two room on the northeast side of the building, will close Monday, Aug, 20, and reopen Tuesday, Sept. 4. The society is open Saturday and Tuesday mornings and by appointment. 

John Dickerson, principal of Congin School next door, doesn’t expect the project to impact the school too much, but does expect the school lot to see “heavier than normal usage” leading up to the start of school, which begins Wednesday, Aug, 29 for first-grade through fourth-grade students and Tuesday, Sept. 4 for kindergartners.

“We are working with them to adjust schedules here and there so everyone can get to where they need to go,” he said.

The paving project at the center coincides with the annual downtime at the Davan Indoor Pool, which will be closed from Aug. 19 to Sept. 3 for cleaning and repairs. The fall aquatics schedule  and community services fall programming begins Tuesday, Sept. 4.

Post said the layout of the lot will remain mostly the same, but some “minor adjustments” may be done to improve traffic flow in front of the building.

Councilor Victor Chau said he appreciates the expansion of the lot, but “on the same token, I don’t care how much parking we expand” if people still don’t follow parking rules. Once the parking lot is resurfaced, he said he would like to see better parking enforcement and make sure visitors are not parking in no-parking spaces or in the fire lane, a common occurrence now.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said police officers and community services representatives are working  to better enforce parking.

Improper parking, Post said, is worst in the winter months during large Westbrook Seals swim meets or during summer baseball and softball tournaments across the street at the Westbrook Little League field.

“There is an influx of vehicles parking where ever they can find space, whether it is a dedicated space or not,” he said.

Post said parking enforcement has first focused on education and warnings rather than ticketing and as a result, over the last six months, “even on the busiest days” parking has been a lot better and more manageable.”

The community center lot is not the only municipal parking lot that saw recent paving. The parking lot at City Hall on York Street was repaved and improved this week. The work was scheduled to begin Aug. 14 and wrap up by week’s end.

Dudley said the York Street work includes repaving of the parking lot and reconstructing the sidewalks, but also the addition of curbing to “improve drainage, constrain parked vehicles and improve the attractiveness to the front of city hall.” 

Bryant said the lot has not been repaved since the city offices moved into the building, formerly occupied by York Insurance, in the mid-1990s.

Michael Kelley can be reached at 781-3661 x 125 or [email protected] or on Twitter @mkelleynews

The parking lot at the Westbrook Community Center on Bridge Street will begin to be repaved next week. The project, which takes place Aug. 20 to Sept. 3, is taking place during a time when some of the center’s biggest programming is on hiatus, but some tenants have chosen to close during the work.

The repaving project at the Community Center also includes an expansion of the parking lot between the side of the building and the soccer fields.