Construction in Gorham of the Robie Park Phase 1 is expected to begin in early spring.

The 6.7-acre park is sandwiched between the high school’s access road off Morrill Avenue and Ballpark Road that leads to the Municipal Center parking lot. The Town Council in March last year approved a master plan developed for the park.

Phase 1 will include a new playground, splash pad, a new circulation path linking the high school with town offices, and protection of existing trees. Playground equipment has already been purchased.

A town steering committee for Robie Park formed following a public outcry to save the park three years ago. The School Department, with prior Town Council approval, axed several trees in a grove near the Robie athletic field where high school softball is played. An arborist had pronounced the harvested trees unsafe.

Upset neighbors and a citizens group, Friends of Robie Park, feared the park – named in honor of town benefactor Martha Robie, widow of Maine’s 39th governor – would be lost as part of a high school expansion plan.

Signs displaying “Save Robie Park” sprouted up throughout the neighborhood and beyond.

The master plan, professionally developed by a consultant, will include restrooms, bicycle racks, benches, cafe seating, raised garden beds, play area and a gateway with signage.

An existing asphalt basketball court will be removed in Phase 1, but relocated later. The existing softball field will remain in place.

Gorham Parks and Recreation Director Cindy Hazelton last week, on a cold night, told a sparsely attended meeting of neighbors and Friends of Robie Park members that an entire park master plan is aimed at completion by 2035 when the park turns 100 years old.

Town Councilor Phil Gagnon in an email last week to the American Journal said the town received $250,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds for “engineering and design and site needs or improvements ” for the park.

Gagnon, who chaired the town’s park steering committee, said another allotment of ARPA funds in December will be used for installing the new playground at the park.

Mike Chabot, vice chair of the town’s steering committee, in a recent letter to the Friends group, announced plans to kick off a fundraising campaign for future phases.

The town went out to bid for Phase 1 and bids were due on Feb. 6.