Riverfront Revival… > Former factory site provides wealth of options in Old Town

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OLD TOWN — The old pie-plate factory known as the Lily-Tulip building that dominated this city’s downtown since the last century is finally coming down.

The preparation work for the structure’s demolition has been completed. The bulk of the contaminants that polluted the building and the land on which it sits have been cleaned up and hauled away.

The Winterport demolition firm the city hired has removed much of what can be salvaged.

Though the roof remains intact, some of the building’s walls are gone, temporarily giving the old factory a doll-house effect. The building will be completely leveled by mid- to late fall.

Once the demolition is completed, residents will for the first time in at least a century have an unobstructed view of one of the most scenic stretches of the Penobscot River.

In the near future, most likely next spring, the former factory site will be landscaped, paving the way for the site’s redevelopment. Like a homeowner who tears out a wall then contemplates redoing the rest of the house, city officials and residents are pondering the opportunity the project presents to make something of their waterfront.

“This is something unique. I don’t think a lot of towns have a chance to create something like this from scratch,” observed City Councilor Paul Boucher at a recent public hearing on the Lily-Tulip site redevelopment effort.

The concept of waterfront redevelopment is not a new one, but it has been relatively slow to reach this part of the state.

One of the first major waterfront projects in Maine was the overhaul of the “Old Port” area in Portland in the 1970s. More recently, Belfast has seen a major turnaround in its image, due in large part to the investments it has made in cleaning up its waterfront. Bangor’s effort, which began in the mid-1980s is beginning to come to fruition. A more recent effort took place in Bucksport, which virtually rebuilt the town dock and has opened a marina.

Old Town’s effort will be worth watching because the city has so far been able to accomplish its waterfront project cheaply, thanks to the Lily-Tulip site’s being designated a pilot project of the new Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative.

The program, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, covered the cost of the site assessment, which saved the city an estimated $40,000.

Additionally, the Maine Legislature adopted the Voluntary Response Action Program. Under VRAP, parties who pursue the cleanup of contaminated sites under a plan acceptable to the Department of Environmental Protection are granted protection from liability.

Like a good housecleaning, the Lily-Tulip effort is expected to have a major psychological impact on this city of about 8,300 people, says City Manager Ron Singel.

It signals, Singel says, the start of a more proactive approach to reviving the once bustling downtown and the waterfront, which over the years has fallen into disuse and decay.

New attitude

Until recently, residents of Old Town have looked at the Penobscot River as little more than a work horse.

The river has provided nourishment, moved people and logs until more modern conveyances arrived, and powered the mills which produced wood products, textiles and other goods.

Lately, however, city officials and residents have started to look at the river — and the land along it — as a springboard for economic development.

“I think sometimes people take it for granted,” Singel said. “It’s a real resource and a real jewel.”

The four-acre Lily-Tulip parcel could be the perfect setting for that jewel. It sits between North Main Street and what arguably is the most scenic stretch of the river. It’s also just across the street from the Old Town Canoe Co.’s factory store, considered the city’s top tourist stop.

Singel and others here hope that the eventual redevelopment of the former industrial site will start a ripple effect, sparking a variety of commercial improvements and initiatives.

Perhaps as important, Singel adds, is the psychological boost such a project could have on the city’s business and residential sectors.

A boost is needed. When a fire swept through North Main Street last October, cutting a swath through the heart of the city’s downtown business district, some people wondered if the area would ever fully recover.

The devastating blaze prompted many to recall an earlier era, when the downtown was the heart of the community, when stores thrived and sidewalks bustled with shoppers and browsers.

Over the past few decades, however, Old Town has fallen victim to some of the same problems that have plagued downtowns everywhere: the allure of shopping malls that siphoned off customers, and the construction of interstate highway networks over which most traffic bypasses downtowns altogether.

The three-building gap left behind by last autumn’s fire remains vacant, and most of the businesses that have reopened have done so elsewhere.

In a sign of hope for the downtown’s future, Singel said that the gap created by the fire might soon be filled by an undisclosed business concern.

Suggestions for the Lily-Tulip parcel have included a brew pub, like the Sea Dog Brewing Co. in Bangor, or a restaurant catering to an upscale crowd. Others would like to see specialty stores, particularly those which would complement Old Town Canoe.

It will take time

“Nothing is going to happen overnight,” cautioned former City Planner Steve Tuckerman before leaving the city’s employ to become Hermon’s town manager.

The Lily-Tulip building has been used as a manufacturing site since at least the late 1800s through the end of 1980. When it closed, the plant was making molded pulp products, notably paper plates. The most recent owner had used it as a warehouse.

Acquiring the site has taken the better part of this decade. The city has been struggling with revamping its downtown since the malls in Bangor began to lure local business and shoppers away from the Old Town area 20 years ago, but it wasn’t until the early 1990s that city officials here began to pen a formal game plan.

In 1992, the city applied for a state grant to purchase the property. An environmental assessment, however, revealed the presence of a number of contaminants, asbestos and hydraulic fuel among them. The estimated cleanup cost at the time was $1.4 million or more.

That, plus the potential liability associated with such a venture, were deemed too great for the city and its taxpayers. City officials scrapped the plan until 1995, when the former owner allowed a tax lien on the building to mature.

The city reintensified its effort to redevelop the Lily-Tulip site, and much had changed in the interim. The state, under new leadership, had adopted a friendlier approach to environmental regulation, and competition had driven down the cost for such work as asbestos removal.

The city hired P. Andrew Hamilton of Eaton, Peabody, Bradford & Veague to assess the city’s potential for liability. They rated the city’s risks as “both slight and manageable.”

The city brought in environmental and engineering consultants with S.W. Cole, a subcontractor of the home town firm James W. Sewell Co., for help in wading through the red tape. Last fall, the city received word that the EPA would perform a site assessment.

After having weighed the pros and cons, the City Council in April approved a purchase and sale agreement. The city and the former owner agreed to split the unpaid taxes on the building from as far back as 1992 to the present.

Ray Lynch of Veazie agreed to give the city clear title to the land in exchange for indemnity from cleanup liability. Lynch also kicked in two freebies — an undeveloped parcel adjacent to the manufacturing site and a small wooded island in the Penobscot River.

In mid-July the massive cleanup effort began. By the time it is completed later this year, it will have involved everything from the removal of underground tanks and asbestos abatement to the actual demolition of the old pie-plate plant. Total cost: around $300,000.

That’s just for starters. The community then must decide what it wants on the parcel and how to make it happen. That phase of the project is just beginning.

Taking stock

Old Town has a number of assets on its side, some of them underused, unappreciated or unpromoted, observes David Larsen, a founder of a grassroots local group called the Greater Old Town Association of Business and Community, or GOTABC.

“We’re very fortunate in that we have some incredible assets,” Larsen said in a recent interview at his downtown print shop.

In addition to the opportunities presented by the Lily-Tulip cleanup project, Larsen said, Old Town is home to the world-famous Old Town Canoe Co., the Fort James Corp.’s Old Town paper mill, a newly expanded museum, and a culturally rich Franco-American community on French Island. Old Town also is next door to the Penobscot Indian Nation.

“We also have, because of the [paper] mill, generations of families who have lived here. So there’s a continuous presence,” he said. The University of Maine campus in nearby Orono, Larsen added, offers the city periodic infusions of new people and fresh ideas.

“Everyone north of [Old Town] drives through here to get to Bangor,” Larsen further obeserved.

What the city and its merchants must do, Larsen suggests, is a better job of getting out the word that in Old Town, people can shop and conduct business without the traffic, parking and high overhead headaches associated with larger cities to the south.

Tuckerman added that the downtown area includes an intact turn-of-the-century commercial block, one of the few that escaped the destructive forces of urban renewal.

More than a “mill town”

Many are quick to dismiss Old Town as just another Maine “mill town.”

Not so, says Tuckerman, pointing to a chart on employment by industry in the city’s 1995 Comprehensive Plan.

Though manufacturing played a major role in the city’s past and continues to be important today, the most recent census shows only 13 percent of the city’s labor force as being engaged in manufacturing, compared to 17 percent for Penobscot County and 20 percent for the state.

More than a quarter of the 4,000 workers here — a total of 28 percent — make their livings in the field of education, most of them at the University of Maine in nearby Orono. By contrast, the county total working in education was 13 percent, and the state was 9 percent.

“When you look at those statistics, we’re a college town, not a mill town,” Tuckerman said.

Riverfront visions

City officials are in the midst of trying to determine the best possible use for the soon to be cleaned up Lily-Tulip site.

“It’s the first step in a long process,” said Code Enforcement Officer Charles Heinonen recently.

In January, community leaders solicited ideas for the Lily-Tulip site reuse from residents representing a broad spectrum of interests. Three key elements emerged.

Residents cited a desire for improved connections — such as a riverwalk connecting the Penobscot River House (a former shoe factory converted to senior housing) to Spencer Park, through the Lily-Tulip site and onto Binette Park, for starters. They suggested that the city ought to consider improving the North Main Street streetscape as well.

Secondly, residents wanted the city to maximize the Lily-Tulip site’s economic potential as well, with a majority leaning toward retail and commercial uses that take advantage of the river views. They felt it important to capitalize on the presence of the Old Town Canoe Co., perhaps through canoe access to the river.

Also high on the residents’ priority list was recreational use, both from a passive and an active standpoint. Suggestions included lawn areas, ice and inline skating space, a boat launch and a community playground.

Based on these suggestions, Bar Harbor landscape architect Sam Coplon developed three reuse scenarios, each of which drew upon all three elements, but in varying degrees.

When the site designs were presented during a public hearing last month, city officials and residents agreed that while they wanted to retain some public access to the site, they felt it important that the plans include space for business.

Last month, Coplon presented his reuse scenarios, each incorporating a mix of public and commercial space and options for capitalizing on the river.

Larsen, who spent part of his childhood in Greece, dreams of a European-style downtown, where people could gather to take meals, stroll and share news and ideas.

Singel envisions an upscale restaurant, specialty shops catering to the outdoorsy and university populations, and perhaps a river access where Old Town canoes could be demonstrated or rented.

But building stores and restaurants is beyond the purview of city government. What ultimately is built there, if anything, will have to come from the private sector.

At this early juncture, no one claims to know how the site ultimately will be used. It’s a chapter in Old Town’s history that is still being written.