Condo group gets tentative status Bangor waterfront eyed for high-end units

BANGOR – City councilors Monday night granted tentative developer status to Penview Associates, a local group that wants to build 40 high-end condominium units on the waterfront.

The city-owned site on the north side of Railroad Street that Penview is eyeing already is earmarked for residential use in the city’s recently updated waterfront redevelopment master plan.

Tentative developer designation essentially allows the city to negotiate a development agreement with a designated party for a specified period, in this case through Oct. 27. The purpose of awarding that status is to see if a development agreement acceptable to both parties can be negotiated.

“Quality is our number one concern,” Penview’s Morris Fer said Tuesday.

“What I’m hearing is that people want upscale condos,” said Fer, a commercial and residential real estate broker with ERA Dawson Bradford Realtors of Bangor.

Asked for a comparison, Fer said Bangor did not yet have condominium housing comparable to what Penview plans to build. Perhaps the closest comparison would be Franklin Place, a downtown condominium complex, he said.

“We expect to step it up a couple of notches from there,” he said.

According to the expression of interest submitted earlier this year, the Penview team also includes Brian Ames, president of Ames A/E, an architectural and engineering firm headquartered in Bangor; Bangor attorney Brent Slater; Berry Dunn McNeil & Parker, a Bangor accounting firm; and Dawson Bradford. Fer said the group planned to use Cianbro Corp. as its contractor.

Ultimately, Penview plans to invest between $8 million and $10 million in the project, Fer said. He expected units to sell at an average of $225,000 apiece.

He said the condo units would have such amenities as terraces and secure indoor parking, as well as some of the best scenic views Bangor has to offer. It would be completed in two phases. Though conceptual plans are still being drawn up, he said that the end result likely will be two five-story buildings connected by a lobby.

The waterfront complex will consist of mostly one- and two-bedroom units, though Fer said some three-bedroom and penthouse units might be included.

Fer said he and his associates hope to break ground next summer, so that it will be under way when as many as 120,000 potential customers are expected to visit the waterfront during the city’s third and last year of the National Folk Festival.

Fer noted that the success of two previous festivals created much excitement about the city’s once-industrial waterfront.

“It’s given people a reason to want to be there, and it’s given people a reason to want to live there,” he said.

He applauded the leadership role the city has taken in the ongoing redevelopment effort, which began in the mid-1980s when the city began acquiring vacated industrial sites near the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge.