AUBURN — An Auburn police project to build a downtown youth center and offer better scrutiny of the area is set to open.

The Auburn Police Athletic League Center, built in the middle of 9.8 acres of park space on either side of Chestnut Street, has scheduled a grand opening from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 16.

“We’ll be doing tours of the building, just trying to get everyone fired up,” said Liz Allen, volunteer coordinator for the Auburn Police Department.

The center will be open weekdays 3-6 p.m. while school is in session, with Auburn’s school resource officers working there. It will offer games, organized athletics, homework help and other programs for Auburn elementary school students.

“We are hoping to expand our base of kids, eventually,” Allen said. “But right now, we need to start smart.”

Parents must register at the center before their children start attending events there, Allen said.

More programs are being considered for the summer, and the league is considering using the space as a teen center, Allen said.

The center is in the refurbished Pathways building, which is at the center of the downtown parks complex. It includes two areas. The first is the 7 acres that begin south of Dennison Street and continue to Chestnut Street. It contains an athletic field and the building. The second, about 2.8 acres, begins on the other side of Chestnut Street and continues to Union Street Bypass. It has three basketball courts and a tennis court.

The park was used by students at Webster Intermediate School until it closed in 2006. Webster reopened a year ago as low-income apartments.

The area is also a center of crime for Auburn. About a quarter of service calls go the one-half square mile around the parks. Of all crimes committed by youths, 23 percent occur in that area.

“For us, that was this big blinking red arrow saying, ‘There’s a problem here,'” Allen said. “Everything is happening there, so we need a presence and we want it to be a positive presence. We want to get to these kids when they are little and they need constructive, safe places to go where they can have positive interactions with police officers and community volunteers.”

Police and volunteers began renovating the building in 2010. The City Council set aside $40,000 in Community Development Block Grant money toward the renovation and volunteers raised more than $150,000 worth of donated labor and supplies to do the work, Allen said.

The National Guard repaired the building’s roof, YouthBuild did the demolition and helped with finish work. Lowe’s donated and installed all of the siding and Neokraft Signs is donating the sign.

“It’s just been one thing after another,” she said. “The response has been staggering.”

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