Brewer board seeks professional district

BREWER – In an effort to relieve traffic on the congested outer Wilson Street corridor and to expand the city’s tax base, the Brewer planning board this week decided to recommend a professional business district for the city.

The professional business district, if given final approval, would be earmarked for white-collar professionals and upscale businesses including doctors’ and lawyers’ offices, research and development facilities and biotech firms, among other enterprises, city officials said.

The Brewer City Council will consider the planning board’s recommendation at its next meeting on July 15. If approved at the meeting, the professional business district will become a reality for a city experiencing rapid commercial growth.

The district, proposed for a 1.8-square-mile area, would be bordered by Parkway South to the west and Interstate 395 to the south. The proposed district also would be bordered by an area off Wilson Street to its north and by an area now known as the Brewer Professional Center to its east. The Brewer Professional Center includes the site of an office complex under construction to house Eastern Maine Healthcare programs.

The newly opened Wal-Mart Supercenter is not part of the fledgling professional park.

Brewer already has a general business district that provides space for major shopping centers and other commercial uses. The professional business district includes standards “intended to encourage refined and compatible aesthetic themes across property lines, including landscaping and signage, and provide for the development of thematic or campus-style projects,” according to a definition in a city document.

Enterprises that may be attracted to the new business professional zone include art galleries, business offices, a child care center, financial institutions, a golf course, motels or hotels, a museum, a sandwich shop or restaurant. The Jackson Laboratory, with headquarters in Bar Harbor, has many program expansions under way and the facility, or one like it, was mentioned as a welcome candidate for the business professional district.

With the city’s pending project to build a road parallel to Wilson Street to relieve traffic problems, it seemed an appropriate time to rezone the area, according to Drew Sachs, the city’s development director, City Planner Linda Johns and David Russell, director of code enforcement.

The proposed district would contain smaller lot sizes than the general business zone. It would include underground utilities, fiber-optic hookups, an esplanade walkway and special pedestrian lighting.

Ruled out of the district would be commercial enterprises such as warehouses, garages and auto repair facilities, recycling centers and other enterprises more readily served in the general business district, according to city officials.

The goal is to attract smaller, nonwarehouse-type enterprises that would fit into the land in the area which, according to Russell, is similar to “raised islands” between wetland areas.

The professional business district has the approval of the state Department of Environmental Protection and other agencies.

If the City Council approves it next week, plans call for it to be enacted within five days.