The Lisa Link Peace Park committee introduced several potential plans to revamp the park at a public hearing Monday night.

Features of a final design could include public restrooms, chess tables, a water fountain, an amphitheater, a carousel, movable furniture, a sandbox, a playground and a wall for graffiti artwork.

Sophomore Cynthia Burnson said she hung out in the park as a teen and said she was worried the park could turn into a trendy area catering to tourists and upper-class residents.

“I’m glad I came here so there is at least someone here to tell them to avoid the Gap trend,” she said. “Teens need a place to hang out.”

Mark Fasanella, age 25, said he was also worried about current park users getting kicked out of the park.

“There are a lot of efforts to gentrify the park due to supposed seedy activities that go on there,” he said. “That is just people’s perception because of the people who occupy the park, and it’s not fair to classify them like that.” Fasanella was referring to a list of activities the committee noted in the park, which included “looking through trash,” “targeting young women,” “alcohol-induced aggressive behavior” and “drug-related activities.”

Three University of Wisconsin students who live next to the park on Gilman said they have seen plenty of the list’s activities, however.

UW student Ann Bomba said there are always fights in the park during summer and a friend of hers who was cutting through the park stepped on a syringe lying on the ground.

“It’s not a well-lit area, so we’re always scared to walk through there,” Bomba said. Her roommate, Sarah Hickey, said people from the park have slept underneath their stairs.

Vimal Patel, the owner of Subway, which is located next to the park, also said the park gets rowdy during the summer.

“When people come in drunk, they don’t listen when I say I will call the police because they are so drunk,” he said. “I lose business because people don’t want to be bothered by panhandlers on that side of the street.”

Despite the perception by some attendants of the hearing that a park overhaul is meant to displace the current park users, committee members said the park would be welcome to all on State Street.

Committee members said three movies in the park organized by the committee last summer were well-attended, both by regular visitors to the park and by pedestrians walking by.

None of the hearing’s attendants spoke publicly in favor of a carousel, which would cost between $150,000 and $200,000.

All the UW students present were in favor of public bathrooms in the park, however, which would resolve the issue of Peace Park’s nickname as the “State Street urinal.”

“There’s no place on State Street to use the bathroom, and people are always pissing in the alleys anyway,” Burnson said.

The Peace Park committee will take all of the public’s suggestions into consideration before a final design is proposed, but some changes could be made as early as this summer.

Committee facilitator Carolyn Peckham said more music and movies in the park do need approval from others and could be implemented right away this summer, while other more expensive projects must go through city committees and then the City Council before final approval, which would take at least a year.

Funding for the park overhaul has not been finalized, but Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said the council could find the money for such necessary improvements.