AUGUSTA — A local philanthropist is prepared to spend millions of dollars to create a park at the vacant former YMCA site and give it to the city, with funding to pay for maintenance.

But city officials want to know details of any such deal before allowing creation of the park at the property, which sits in a zone where parks aren’t currently allowed.

Seasonal local resident Robert Fuller has proposed to create a park on the roughly 1-acre site he owns at the intersection of State and Winthrop streets, across the street from Lithgow Public Library and the Capital Judicial Center. He would then give the park to the city, along with an endowment to pay for its maintenance into the future.

A representative of Fuller, Patrick Costin of Canal 5 Studio, a Portland architecture, planning and interior design firm, told city councilors last week Fuller is prepared to raise, including from other family members, and spend, “millions of dollars” to create the park and provide upkeep.

But he wants assurance, through a proposed contract zone, specifying that the city would allow a park to be built there.

However, city councilors want more information before deciding whether the city should accept the gift.

And if the city won’t accept the gift of the park, they said, there’s no reason to approve the proposed contract zone to allow the park to move forward even in private hands.

“If having the park is contingent on the city accepting it, why wouldn’t we negotiate that ahead of time before deciding to commit to a contract zone?” Mayor Mark O’Brien said April 10. “I don’t understand why we’d create a contract zone without knowing that we’re going to take (the park). It just seems ass-backwards to create a zone that we don’t even know we’re going to use.”

Some councilors aren’t interested in a park at the site at all, whether it’s owned by the city or not. They say the prominent property could be used in other ways, including uses that generate property taxes, which a city-owned park would not.

“Our comprehensive plan designates that area for certain uses; this isn’t one of them,” said At-large Councilor William Savage. “For me, I look at that use as a park as crowding out the other things intended for that area, like office space or housing or whatever the comprehensive plan says we want there. So I’d be a ‘no’ on the simple question of a park going there.”

The Planning Board voted to recommend the council approve the contract zone to allow Fuller to build a park on the site.

Matt Nazar, city development director, said board members voted after determining that, in their view, a park in that zone would be in line with the city’s comprehensive plan, even though a park is currently not an allowed use there.

Ward 2 Councilor Kevin Judkins favored allowing the park project to move forward, noting the city doesn’t own the property now and thus can’t demand it be developed commercially.

“I understand it would come with an endowment and there would not be a cost to the city,” Judkins said of Fuller’s proposal. “I think we can hope and pray a nice office building would go up there and we’d get a big tax amount coming, but that’s not going to happen, unfortunately. He owns the land, people believe in private property rights, so just because there’s a comprehensive plan doesn’t mean a citizen has to go along with that.

“I can see a lot worse things there. It may actually be a suitable place for a park. So as long as we could work out all the details, I would accept it with gratitude.”

Councilors eventually agreed to direct City Manager Jared Mills to work with the city attorney and Fuller to develop details of the proposed gift, and bring that information back to councilors, before they vote on whether to approve the contract zone.

The proposal for the park takes the place of a previous plan by Fuller to develop the same location as a museum housing a statue of his controversial relative, Melville W. Fuller, who was from Augusta and served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, presiding over a ruling that maintained racial segregation.

The new plans from Fuller, who has also donated funds to other projects in the city, do not involve the statue of Melville W. Fuller, who served as the eighth chief justice of the United States from 1888 until his death in 1910.

Instead, it would feature flower gardens, landscaping, a playground, picnic tables, benches, a parking lot and walking paths.

At-large Councilor Annalee Morris-Polley said she liked the idea of a park near the library, where there are often lots of kids, and in the area of the relatively new Capital Judicial Center courthouse.

She said she thought the concept plan for the “park looked very, very nice, it was something that (would be) hard to say no to.”

But, she said, the city should negotiate with Fuller the details of the transfer before making a decision.