LEWISTON — A team from the National Park Service will be in town later this week to see if the the Twin Cities have what it takes to be part of the Groundwork USA trust program.

“They are looking for a place that has a lot of potential,” said Julie Isbell of the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program in Brunswick.

Isbell will be part of the team in town Thursday and Friday evaluating Lewiston-Auburn’s application to be part of the program.

“They are looking for places that have resources, like the river and nearby open spaces,” she said. “They want places that need to be cleaned up, and then they want a community that has groups with the capacity to really make that happen.”

Groundworks USA is a program that helps create local organizations to redevelop urban areas and make them more usable and open for recreation. So far, 20 communities across the country have won the designation, including San Diego, Milwaukee, Denver and New Orleans.

Lewiston-Auburn is the first of eight communities across the country that are being evaluated this spring. The others are Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chattanooga, Tenn., Fall River/New Bedford, Mass., Indianapolis, Ind., and Jacksonville, Fla.

Only two of the eight communities will win the Groundwork Trust designation.

Representatives from each of the eight communities have already submitted letters outlining their qualifications. Doug Evans, manager of the Groundwork program, said the site visits should wrap up in June. Communities can submit full proposals by the end of June, and the Park Service will announce the two communities chosen in August.

At stake is $180,000 in potential matching grants — $80,000 to help set up a communitywide program devoted to improving the environment and creating better access to the outdoors and $100,000 in support for the next three years.

“Some folks we’ve talked to in the past are looking for an organization to help with business development,” Evans said. “While we think improving the environment is good for business, that’s not the focus of Groundwork. Groundwork is to make those environmental improvements and find new opportunities to improve the green space so that business is attracted to the community.”

Auburn Mayor Jonathan LaBonte, executive director of the Androscoggin Land Trust, helped write the initial application and is organizing the site visits on Thursday and Friday.

The visits will be a wide-ranging tour of the communities, LaBonte said, with stops Thursday at Museum L-A in the Bates Mill Complex, Auburn’s Police Activities League Center on Chestnut Street, the Tree Street Youth Center in Lewiston and a walking tour of Lewiston’s Riverfront Island.

Friday’s visits include a tour of New Auburn, Museum L-A’s planned site at the Camden Mill at Simard-Payne Memorial Park and the St. Mary’s Nutrition Center on Bates Street in Lewiston.

“I’d call it a tour of building the community of Lewiston-Auburn for the 21st century,” LaBonte said. “It’s really about where this community has come from and its heritage and how we can sustain that going forward.”

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