HAMPDEN – For several years, Avalon Village has been drawing retirees who want to live independently without having to worry about the upkeep of their homes.

Now the retirement community also wants to provide a place for senior citizens who need assistance with daily living.

Avalon Village will partner with Sandy River Health System – the state’s largest provider of health care services to seniors – in the construction and operation of a $7 million assisted living and independent living project, according to Andy Stewart, co-developer of the Hampden retirement community.

For seniors who need help walking short distances, dressing or bathing, the assisted living portion of the project will enable residents to remain a part of Avalon Village if their health care needs increase, he said recently.

Known as the Lodge, the project calls for 60 luxury apartments located adjacent to the existing cottages on a high bluff overlooking the Penobscot River.

Construction is expected to begin next summer and be completed in the summer of 2003, according to a news release issued earlier this month.

Based in Portland, Sandy River Health System operates 12 nursing care and assisted living facilities throughout Maine including Harbor Hill in Belfast and Windward Gardens in Camden, both of which were developed by the company. Sandy River also operates Orono Commons in Orono.

The latest project is a natural extension of Sandy River’s mission, according to Daniel Maguire, vice president in charge of development.

“This dovetails nicely with the projects we’ve developed in the past and takes us into retirement living services for the first time,” he said in the news release.

The Hampden Planning Board in 1998 approved the entire project, which is on the 54-acre former estate of Ralph and Edythe Dyer off Route 1A in Hampden.

Even so, the latest plan likely will entail another visit to the board, according to Stewart. “We’ll probably go back to tweak it,” he said.

Although an architect has yet to be selected, Stewart promised that the lodge would complement the rest of the community and not infringe on the rustic environment.

“Everyone who’s come here has a feeling for the natural world. Our biggest attraction is the natural beauty of the site – we have a strong desire to keep as much of that intact as possible,” said Stewart, citing the area’s walking trails, undisturbed wetlands and pine trees that abut the river.

“Many developers would have put condos on the river bank and taken down the pines,” he said. “We’re not doing that, you’d just have a hill on the river and none of the beauty.”