NEWPORT – Newport selectmen approved two victualers’ licenses Wednesday night, increasing the number of new businesses to five that have opened in the past month.

Joanne Whitney will open Joanne’s Bakery Plus on Water Street in June. The business will provide traditional bakery products, as well as breakfasts and lunches. Chung Hien-Ninh is opening Dragon House, a take-out and delivery Asian restaurant in Triangle Plaza.

Curves for Women, a national self-improvement chain, is opening in Gilman’s Plaza at the Triangle Business Section and will be joined by Trailside Discount Outlet, a Bangor business.

Last week, local developer Greg Lovley announced a multimillion dollar project that includes his purchase of Newport Plaza and his partnership with Pittsfield businessman Sessa Menendez in a family fun center at the former Ames Building.

“And there are at least five more rumors out there,” Town Manager James Ricker joked Wednesday night.

“Things are just exploding around here,” Ricker told the Board of Selectmen. “Along with these new businesses, we have given out more than $1 million in building permits, and it’s only the end of April.”

The permits include new homes, home additions and new businesses.

Ricker credits the high traffic count in Newport for providing a prime location. “The last traffic count had 13,500 cars a day traveling up Route 7,” he said. Route 7 – the Moosehead Trail – converges at the Triangle with Routes 2 and 100 and Interstate 95.

Ricker also updated selectmen on the status of the fishway construction at North Street Dam. Two concrete pourings have been done, he said, and three more will be done.

“This will take care of all the concrete work and then the 12 aluminum gates and pools will be installed,” Ricker said. “Progress is slow but I believe we’re on the downhill side.”

Recent rains raised the lake by 2 inches Tuesday night, but the lake is still 8 or 9 inches below the dam flashboards, said Ricker.

“We’d like to bring the lake up based on last year’s dry conditions,” said the manager. “They can still work on the fishway. They have coffer dams in place.” Ricker said the priority regarding the level of the lake will be the lake itself and lakeshore dwellers, not the fishway.

Ricker said a second look is being taken at whether enough stabilization was done at the base of the Center Street Bridge during the fishway construction and the removal last year of the Main Street Dam.

Kleindschmidt Associates, a Pittsfield engineering firm hired to design reconstruction of the river channel this summer, said there was not enough emphasis in preventing scouring below the bridge and recommended recently that large boulders be placed in the channel and the sides get heavily reinforced.

Ricker said he will talk to the Maine Department of Marine Resources, which paid for both projects, about adding that stabilization project to the ongoing riverbed plan. That plan includes rerouting the river to its original path, protecting an 80-foot-long archeological site, and creating a river walk and parks on the western side of the channel.

As part of the project, Ricker said the town will look for volunteers next month to plant 250 trees between the North Street Dam and the Center Street Bridge.