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Town of Chevy Chase officials are advocating for more street lights at Elm Street Park, with construction on park upgrades scheduled to begin this month.

Work on the park, which is bordered by Willow Lane, 46th Street and 47th Street, is scheduled to last until July. Scheduled improvements include a new asphalt pathway running from southeast to northwest parallel to a route pedestrians usually use, repaving existing asphalt paths, 18 new benches and 10 new picnic tables, new trash and recycling receptacles, and new pedestrian lighting. A cost estimate of the project was not available.

Officials and residents said they hoped new street lights could be added to improve the sense of security in the park, which is operated by the county's Parks Department. Pat Burda, chairwoman of the town's Long-Range Planning Committee, said she also hoped five lights near the Elm Street Park playground could be replaced. Improvements to the playground are not part of the project.

"Obviously, the people that live there don't want to have the whole thing illuminated like a playing field or something, but at the same time people want to feel safe crossing there," Burda said.

The project is part of a hotel development at the Air Rights office building at the intersection of Waverly Street and Montgomery Avenue in Bethesda. The developers at Air Rights, the Donohoe Development Co., are paying for and building the park improvements as part of a county requirement.

Other off-site amenities related to the hotel development include repaving the Capital Crescent Trail in the tunnel under Wisconsin Avenue and building a rock garden there; brick paving on Waverly Street near the development; landscaping and seating areas at the corner of Waverly Street and Montgomery Avenue; and a future public art project on Waverly Street, according to Donohoe representative Steve Van Dorpe. Another amenity, a pedestrian and bike access point from Pearl Street to the trail, is the subject of negotiation between the county and a private landowner.

These off-site amenities were first discussed approximately five years ago in meetings among the town, Donohoe and the county.

According to a letter from Burda to the Town Council, 20 residents expressed concern with security in Elm Street Park in the town's 2008 community survey. In the same survey, 29 percent of respondents indicated they were dissatisfied with street lighting in the town, the fourth-highest rate of dissatisfaction among all issues included in the survey, while 40 percent expressed concern about visibility of security patrols at night, the second-highest rate of dissatisfaction.

"We really do need to consult with the nearby residents who are concerned about lighting there," Mayor Kathy Strom said, referring to the park.

Last October, the council discussed mounting security cameras on buildings around Elm Street Park to monitor the area. But Al Lang, the council's liaison to the Public Services Committee, said the idea "has not gotten anywhere at all."

Linda Komes, project manager for the Parks Department, said it was too late to ask Donohoe to include new street lights, but that the department would be interested in any town proposal to build more street lights.

"We'd sort of have to go through a community vetting process," Komes said. "We're not opposed to them. Nobody's really put forth a concrete proposal to add the lights yet."