Dignitaries toss shovelfuls of dirt Friday morning at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Police Activities League Center on Chestnut Street in Auburn. The $9 million building will provide a place for youths to go after school for homework help, food, sports and more. It will feature a full-size gym and commercial kitchen and is slated to open in September 2025. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

AUBURN — Beneath a scorching sun Friday, dozens of officials gathered in a Chestnut Street park for a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of a $9 million project to construct a new Auburn Police Activities League Center.

“We’re here because a lot of people said ‘yes,’” City Manager Phil Crowell said.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican credited with delivering $3 million in federal aid that helped unlock more money for the project, called it “a great day for Auburn and for its children.”

Collins said the 14,000-square-foot facility, slated to open in September 2025, will be “a true neighborhood gem” that will help transform an area that has seen higher than average levels of poverty and crime. It will include a full-size gym and commercial kitchen.

Mayor Jeff Harmon said the groundbreaking was “an important and exciting day” for the city and a credit to municipal officials past and present who pushed it.

A conceptual drawing for the new $9 million Auburn PAL Center is displayed Friday morning at the groundbreaking ceremony on Chestnut Street. It is slated to open in September 2025. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

The original PAL center, created after a push by Crowell in 2013, was razed last month as work got underway on the site.

Crowell said he got the original idea for the PAL center after he saw “a very young boy shooting baskets with a rock” at a basketball court in Chestnut Park, usually called The Gully.

He said everyone rallied behind the proposal to create a center that could foster improvements, including better relations between the police and young people.

Collins said one reason she’s been so supportive of the project is that she heard years ago from Maine police chiefs that the most likely time of the week for young people to get into trouble was after school.

“This is the critical time,” she said, not weekend nights as she once thought.

Over the years, Crowell said, it served more than 1,000 youngsters in the community. It provided a place to go after school for homework help, food, sports and more.

Crowell said he knew the little building “wasn’t going to hold us very long” after seeing children coming day after day.

As part of the project, the city has already closed Chestnut Street to through traffic.

Crowell said that in the coming months, Auburn intends to demolish aging housing units at the corner of Chestnut and Webster streets. It is finding new housing for a few of the remaining tenants, he said, and aims to have everyone out by the end of August.

He said the entire lot, which may have environmental issues, will be paved for parking for people using the park and the new PAL Center.