Jamie Sanders, one of the coaches for the Lycoming Composite Mountain Bike Team is flanked by team members and coaches as he addresses the Lycoming County commissioners at their weekly meeting. The group is seeking to build a bike skills park in the area. Full story to come. PAT CROSSLEY/Sun-Gazette

If the vision of the Lycoming Composite Mountain Bike Team becomes a reality, this area would be home to a bike skills park that, according to the group, could provide not only recreation, but draw people to live here.

“We’re all aware that Lycoming County is aging and our median age is rising and our population is decreasing … we have a situation that we would like to reverse,” said Jamie Sanders, one of the team coaches.

Depopulation of the county is a topic that regularly comes up with the commissioners who are trying to find ways to keep the younger population from leaving after finishing their education.

Sanders touched on that when he said he had been speaking with employers in the area who said that they would hire students from local colleges, but that they don’t seem to want to stay here after graduation.

“They cannot keep our students here. Tremendous opportunities are there but there’s no one to fill them,” Sanders said.

In order to reverse the citation, Sanders suggested it’s time “to change the way that we think about our area and create a future that we’re all looking forward to being a part of and working toward. And I think that future involves outdoor recreation.”

“We need a future that will change the atmosphere, the quality of life and Lycoming County so that we can retain our graduates from our great institutions that are right here so that when they graduate, they’re looking forward to having a career in this area, raising a family in this area,” he said.

“We have long pointed to our prosperous past in the logging industry. That was a century ago. And it has an incredible and beautiful history. But we can no longer look back. We have to look forward and create a future that we’re looking forward to. And we change the narrative about Williamsport into being something that people want to be a part of, not something that was once great,” Sanders said.

Sanders cited Chattanooga as a city that made the change to a more recreation-driven community, something that he would like to see happen here.

“We’re proposing Lycoming work toward developing these natural resources, create outdoor recreation spaces and a lifestyle that will position us as a center for recreation and enjoyment of the outdoors,” he said.

The group was asking the county for help in finding the $500,000 in funding needed for the bike skills park.

“We’re asking that county government begin to invest in this kind of activity in bringing these people to the community and I’m at a city level asking the city to be involved as well as the county seat to make this a place that people see as an outdoor recreation space that’s going to drive industry. We’re going to need new outdoor stores. We’re going to need kayak and bike rental offset centers…

“We really envision that driving our parks and rec so that we’re getting kids from downtown — who are never getting on a bike or never floating down a creek or never doing these activities — out there and enjoying natural resources,” Sanders said.

He pointed out that developing the recreational opportunities in the area would benefit everyone, not just the bikers.

“Everybody enjoys doing this and outdoor lifestyle people all want to be a part of this,” he said.

“It’s a part of a larger thing; it’s literally a lifestyle change. And these are the kinds of things that we see driving the change of attitude about our community — from one of ‘We had a great past,’ to ‘Wow, we’ve got a great future.’ We’re talking about a bike park and investing in a bike park today. That is what we want. But we’re talking about a small beginning toward that goal,” Sanders said.

Although the group did not offer a specific location for their proposed bike skills park, they did indicate that they would like to see it in an area which is near the RiverWalk which would create what Sanders said a “highway system for bikes.”

“Part of our desire is that we’ve made it somewhere close to population centers because we want this to be a beginning to driving business to the area,” he said.

“We’ve got housing here, we’ve got hotels, we have all the restaurants. We have a beautiful downtown that we want to continue to see flourish and develop and there’s just tremendous opportunity to do that,” he said.

“Great things are in the works, so we want to be a part of that movement,” he added.

Commissioner Tony Mussare brought up a property of about 100 acres in Sylvan Dell that the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources financed the purchase for the county which is now in the possession of an authority.

The property is near the South Williamsport Park. Part of it is wetlands which could not be disturbed, according to Shannon Rossman, director of the county’s planning and community development department.

She added that it would be a good area for a bike skills park because of its location.

Commissioner Rick Mirabito encouraged the bikers and their coaches to work with DCNR and government officials to find ways to finance the park.

“I don’t think that’s a pipe dream. I think that’s something that we can find a way,” he told the group.