Bucksport, developer team up to build new roads for downtown housing

April 27-- Apr. 27--A developer has proposed teaming up with Bucksport to connect two dead-end streets near downtown and create a third as part of a plan that could bring new housing to the downtown area.

Developer John Wardwell of Orland hopes to extend both Bucksport's Park Street and Broadway to form a new intersection and then create another, unnamed road that would run north of the intersection. The plan would add about 2,250 feet of new road to the downtown area, according to a project proposal by Woodard & Curran, an engineering firm with an office in Bangor.

The town received the plan Friday.

Town Manager Susan Lessard said the plan could buoy new investment in Bucksport, which is already expecting a $200 million indoor salmon farm and a Maine Maritime Academy annex to break ground at the former Verso Paper mill site this year.

"Right now zoning in that area is commercial, but it abuts residential, which is the Broadway piece," Lessard said. "My thought is that as much as we need downtown commercial space, we also need housing. We need additional kinds of housing, and more of it, because we don't have enough of it."

The plan calls for no housing, as yet. As part of it, Park Street, which is adjacent to Hillside Business Park, a Route 1 strip mall that includes a Family Dollar store, Subway sandwich shop and a U.S. Cellular office, would be extended about 750 feet.

Broadway, which runs north of and parallel to Route 1, would get an additional 500 feet. The new road would be about 1,000 feet long.

Wardwell declined to comment Friday on what would follow the construction of the new roadways.

The connected roads will also include new sidewalks for pedestrians and relieve traffic on nearby Nicholson Avenue, which connects Broadway with Route 1, which is also known as Main Street. Nicholson Avenue generally runs parallel with Park Street.

Downtown could use new types of housing, particularly for millennials and retirees, said Brook Ewing Minner, executive director of Main Street Bucksport, a nonprofit downtown business group formed in 2014.

"We haven't had a lot of new construction in the village district in quite a long time. This opens opportunities for that," Minner said. "I am also hopeful that this will allow for condos. There is really a lot of demand for that type of housing."

"Millennials like a smaller housing footprint, and older people do, too," she said. "More generally, new construction gives us the opportunity for new people to move to town, and that's always a good thing. We have space to grow our schools, and new people are really welcomed in Bucksport."

Town officials have been in discussions with Wardwell about extending the roads since at least 2012. That was when First Atlantic Healthcare of Portland eyed building an elder care facility off Main Street that would feature 61 nursing home beds plus 30 assisted living beds.

Officials sought to extend Broadway -- which runs parallel to Main Street before finishing at a dead end -- to connect to Park Street to accommodate the increased traffic and to provide another outlet from Broadway. The plan died because the beds proved to be unneeded, Wardwell said.

A 2012 analysis estimated that the extension would cost $885,550, including infrastructure and utilities. But town officials expect the cost to be lower because the work would be performed by Bucksport's road crew.

The town set aside $250,000 for the Broadway extension about two years ago, Lessard said. Wardwell will pay for the other work associated with the plan, she said.

The Planning Board will likely take its first look at the plan when it meets Tuesday, May 7, at 6:30 p.m.

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