Seeing Bangor

Presented with the problem of urban blight, the Bangor City Council this week did what Bangor city councils have done for the last 30 years: Allow developers to demolish the offending buildings, erect a cookie-cutter megastore and pave everything else. The council’s action emphasizes what Bangor has become — a place with a vague sense that somewhere under all the asphalt and warehouse architecture there once lived a city of some importance and not a little beauty.

You wouldn’t know it now, but Broadway wasn’t always a development nightmare; Union once had a handsome order to its hotels and shops; the top of State Street was tree-lined and dignified; Hammond was positively bucolic. Bangor always was a rough-and-ready town, however, it also had its sophisticated side.

Many of the city’s finest structures suffered wear and decay so severe that by the time of urban renewal in the mid-’60s, they were prime targets for redevelopment. The same is true for the site proposed for the new Rite Aid store, at the corner of Union and Hammond streets. It is an old neighborhood that the council would rather have disappear than consider why it was allowed to fall into its current state.

The council’s approval Monday of the Rite Aid development certainly would put a nice clean store where now there are dilapidated houses, and if that is all that matters, councilors made the right choice. But if reviving that part of the city — as has been happening — counts for anything; if following the comprehensive plan that neighbors relied on when they bought their homes is important; if planning so that neighborhoods aren’t squeezed out of existence matters, then the council erred and the city lost.

So, before council members move on to other subjects, they should listen once again to residents concerned with the Rite Aid development and offer them an opportunity to further negotiate with developers on this project. Given the impact of this project, that’s not much to ask.

What’s left to talk about? Plenty. It is clear that Rite Aid has been willing to make changes to satisfy local concerns and equally clear that other communities have gotten significantly more than this city. Already, Bangor has persuaded Union Realty Trust, which is developing the 11,800-square-foot store, to modify its plans for street access and building design. Stephen Dubord of Union Realty Trust said he would welcome further discussions with residents.

Councilors should accept his offer by empaneling residents concerned about the project. The group would not be organized to oppose the project (it’s probably too late for that) but to find ways to accommodate it. Perhaps a design change to make the building look like something more than a box with a few gables nailed on. Maybe increased buffers are possible or enhanced landscaping. Perhaps residents would like to reopen discussions that traded a property on Ohio Street to Ross Care in exchange for turning the Ross backyard into a Rite Aid parking lot. If Ross Care also intends to tear down the Ohio Street residence, what did the city gain in the trade?

Rite Aid is relocating because its current corporate theory that customers are attracted by stand-alone buildings with drive-through service. Some residents are worried about what will become of this site when the next consultant hands Rite Aid an entirely different theory. The 20-year lease Rite Aid agreed to guarantees that some business will pay rent for the next two decades but not necessarily Rite Aid. Concerned residents might want to renegotiate this, asking, for instance, that the building be leased only to the convenience store/pharmacy for the next 10 years.

Rite Aid’s incentive to negotiate is significant. It still has several more code hoops to jump through before the wrecking ball swings. Its competition — Brooks Pharmacy — soon will open a new store and attract customers down the street. This is an important time for Rite Aid representatives to be good neighbors and keep the project moving.

In a larger sense, councilors would be doing Bangor a favor by organizing a negotiating group with Rite Aid. They would be involving more residents in the future of the city, telling them, at the very least, that the way people live in and travel around the city is important. Who knows, an effective group of residents could push the city to become better prepared when the next proposal to level an old neighborhood arrives.