LEBANON — The city's first substantial downtown park is taking shape.

        City Council last week approved the layout of Bicentennial Park, which will take up much of the block bounded by Main, Cherry, Mechanic and Mulberry streets, just a street away from the city's main shopping district.

        Crews are beginning work on the parking lot, and council also OK'd buying a gazebo for $18,200.

        “We've just simply out grown the little Gazebo Park,” downtown merchant Marilyn Haley said. “It will be a wonderful place for summer events.”

        Lebanon has two tiny parks downtown at opposite corners of Broadway and Main, the Gazebo and Christmas Tree parks.

        Neither, however, has space for concerts or other big gatherings, Planning Director Marty Kohler said; Harmon Park on East Street is too far.

        The new park's gazebo will be twice the size of the one on Broadway, and the park will include public rest rooms, which downtown shopkeepers have long sought. The bathrooms will be on Mechanic, across the parking lot from the Goodwill building, which has been earmarked for eventual use by Lebanon's theater group.

        A store or gallery is envisioned on a vacant Main Street lot, and the 5-7 Cherry building will be renovated for offices or shops, Mr. Kohler said.

        The gazebo will be installed next to 5-7 Cherry, with a brick plaza eventually built in front of it.

        The Rotary Club now holds concerts in Gazebo Park in the summer, but besides being cramped, the musicians are sometimes drowned out by truck traffic, Mrs. Haley said.

        She is a member of the bicentennial committee, which is planning activities for the city's 200-year anniversary next year. The namesake park will be the setting for many of those festivities.

        Annual events such as the Christmas horse parade that take place on blocked-off downtown streets could take advantage of the additional space.

        It also will be a nice place for people — especially the elderly — to walk, said Mayor James Mills.

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