The 123-acre park would surround Chaffin Pond, located behind Sherwin Williams paint store in North Windham, and be named after the wife of Martin Lippman, the Standish man and North Windham business owner who donated $400,000 last year to the town to purchase the parcel from the Portland Water District.

In return for the donation, Lippman secured rights to 10 acres of the parcel and requested any future park be named after his wife. Lippman may be interested in developing three parcels he owns along the Route 302 abutting the Chaffin Pond property and would need the 10 acres for septic system density calculations.

While the initial purchase of the land came at no cost to town taxpayers, development of a park is likely to exceed $1 million, according to proposals set forth Tuesday night by the firm contracted to design the park, Portland-based Mitchell & Associates.

Mitchell consultants Bob Metcalf and Sashie Misner brought forth two concept plans, one which incorporated athletic fields, a dog park, community building, playground and picnic pavilion; and another that featured lower-impact uses such as hiking trails, camping area and natural features such as an amphitheater, a beach and a woodland play area for children.

Concept A, which included the athletic fields, got the most praise from those in attendance, most of whom represented Windham-based sports leagues.

“We are big advocates of Option A,” said Steve Pock, vice president of the 175-member Windham Youth Lacrosse Organization. “Whether it’s the right place to put it or not in this particular wildlife preserve, that’s up to debate. I think the town is in pretty dire need of more fields.”

Pock wasn’t alone in his request for more fields. Jim Cummings, who said he has served on most sports organization in Windham during the last 20 years, told the council that “it’s always been a fight for fields” in Windham, with many teams vying for few fields.

Cummings said the location would be a good one for more playing fields primarily for baseball, soccer, softball and lacrosse.

“Ten percent of this property is not much to ask for,” Cummings said, referring to the proposed acreage for fields in Concept A. “What we do have, it’s not much. We’ve got the school property, but the school rules. We’ve got no place for adults to recreate. We’ve got no place for pick-up softball games, pick-up anything. We are so far behind in the amount of fields needed for this town. This is certainly a great start. It’s a gift horse; we pretty much have to take it.”

The town spent $40,000 for Mitchell’s preliminary design, which will also include follow-up refinements of the project, Windham Parks and Recreation Director Brian Ross said. The council has the final say and provided some feedback on the two proposals.

Council Chairman Scott Hayman said he liked both concepts.

“I think both concepts are nice,” he said. “It’s not all going to happen overnight. We’ve got plenty of time to piecemeal this thing together but I think the ball fields are needed. I think open space is needed. I think that both concepts can be melded into one and achieve the same essential goal that all stakeholders have in mind. There’s 123 acres there. Not everybody wants to do the same thing with the 123 acres, but at the same time, there’s 123 acres. We can all share it and figure out a way to meld those two (concepts) together.”

Councilor Tommy Gleason said the proposal shouldn’t “take 40 years” to come to fruition, referring to Hayman’s call for a piecemeal approach. He said the price tag could also prove costly, especially when Windham has many infrastructure and building needs, he said.

While cost estimates are broad, Concept A would cost several million to build roads, parking, concessions, fields and bathrooms. The less intense Concept B would also be less expensive, though the plan still exceeds $1 million, since many upgrades would be needed.

“I’m concerned about money. That’s an awful lot of money,” Gleason said.

Hayman responded saying, “There’s an awful lot of local groups out there … that will volunteer their time and possibly some of their cash that will take to get it done.”

Councilor David Nadeau said councilors should walk the property before they get too specific about the proposal. “I don’t think you can comment on either one of (the concepts) until you walk that property. It’s really a unique piece of property.”

Nadeau said he’s been “yelling about ballfields for a long, long time,” but, he added, “I think it would be a real shame to put ballfields in here. One, I don’t think you’ve got adequate parking for ball games even with the parking that’s proposed. I like the idea of this being a park. A lot of people use this now and you go there and see them showshoeing, skiing, walking the trails.”

While a few councilors gave some hint of where they stood on the proposal, little direction was given to how to move forward on the proposal, said Windham Parks and Recreation Director Brian Ross, whose department is in charge of taking care of the Chaffin Pond property, which now maintains 2 miles of trails and access to the 13-acre Chaffin Pond, which is stocked with brook trout.

Ross, who has attended previous community meetings on the proposal, said Tuesday night’s discussion on the two proposals will help him and the consultants move ahead on refining the plan.

“There was some good discussion about what people like and didn’t like and what the town needs,” Ross said Wednesday. “The field folks – Little League, lacrosse and soccer – liked Concept A with the fields, so I think we have to give it some thought and see what direction the council wants to go in. I didn’t expect any decision last night, but hopefully they can think on it and maybe we can provide them with more information and see where we need to go next. There wasn’t any real clear direction on which way to go so we’ll have to see if we can nail it down.”

Ross said he plans to sit down with the consultants next week to further refine the overall budget and proposal to incorporate what “people want out there,” he said. Once a plan is agreed to, Ross expects the park to be installed in phases. But before the first phase can be installed, a final vision should be determined especially if fields and parking play a role, he said.

“Once you put the more intensive uses, such as the fields and more parking, you can’t go back after you’ve done all that, so it’s going to take time. Probably a three- to five-year plan to put it together,” Ross said.