ERVING — A ground-breaking ceremony on Aug. 20 will mark the beginning of work on a project aiming to boost the community and local economy from the site of an abandoned paper mill.
The first phase of the Erving Riverfront Park project will include construction of a conservation and recreation area on about half of the site’s 14 acres. The opening ceremony will be at 2 p.m.
After five years of planning by the Usher Mill Re-Use Committee, formal construction will begin in early September.
Those seven acres will include a community garden space, a picnic pavilion and a band shell looking onto a landscaped lawn, as well as trails featuring historical and conservation signage, UMRC Chairwoman Jeanie Schermesser said.
It’ll offer a central community space near the town center, something Erving lacks, she said.
“It’s something people can gather around,” she said. “There’ll be events there, and I think it’ll foster a lot of community pride and investment. That’s something we really need.”
The park will also include access to the adjacent Millers River, Schermesser said, a feature not available elsewhere in town despite the fact that the river runs along its southern border.
Much of the project is funded by a state Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities grant. The $400,000 from that grant will be matched by Erving residents, according to a UMRC press release.
That budget will cover the first phase of the project, Schermesser said, which is set to be finished by summer of 2017 — a deadline emphasized by PARC grant stipulations. The committee hopes to secure another PARC grant in 2017 for the second phase of the project, which will cover renovation of the other seven acres.
PARC grant applications are due in the summer and awards are announced in December, Schermesser said, so if the town can secure another grant, the second phase could begin the following year.
“We’re trying to stay on top of it,” she said.
A question mark looms over the timing of the project’s third phase, she said, which constitutes the redevelopment of the mill itself. The committee is looking for a developer to take on the project, either working hand in hand with the town or buying it and developing it with some conditions.
“I think the town would consider any serious prospect,” Schermesser said. “It has to be in line with the park — it can’t be, like, a tire manufacturing company. It has to be conservation- or recreation-based.”
The committee has visited a number of renovated mill sites in western Massachusetts, Schermesser said, and those have shown her the building could be used for any number of purposes, from housing to gallery spaces. She could see Usher Mill housing a handful of small retail sites — a coffee shop, a Kayak renter — that could supplement the park while also helping the town’s economy.
“I think that you build something like that, people come,” she said. “I think it’ll help the businesses that are already in town, and maybe a couple of new ones.”
And although the park could help serve the town, Schermesser said one of its best features is its isolation: it’s close to the center of town, but it feels far away.
“When you go under the railroad overpass to access the site, you feel like you’re nowhere at all,” she said. “It’s like this little private oasis right there on Route 2.”