Corinna eyes mansion as renewal centerpiece

CORINNA – If David Carcieri and the other members of the town’s economic group have their way, magic is coming to Corinna.

The town is planning to build a Victorian mansion that will become the cornerstone of Corinna’s downtown renewal and the theme for all future construction in the village center.

Projected to be filled with a half-dozen new businesses, the project is seen as a major draw to help bring the life back into Corinna. It will also be the centerpiece for what is hoped to be a major winter wonderland holiday attraction.

Planned for the intersection of Routes 43, 222, 7 and 11, the building will be a traffic stopper. “It will be a turn-of-the-century, Queen Anne high-Victorian,” Carcieri said. “It will have a 360-degree verandah, overlooking the river. It will have leaded glass, beveled glass, stained-glass. There will be lots of gingerbread.”

The Victorian style is meant to inspire the rest of the architecture planned for the rebuilding of the town’s center, emptied of all buildings after a Super Fund cleanup to take care of pollution from a former woolen mill. A town bandstand, planned for across the street from the cornerstone building, is also going to be constructed in the Victorian style.

Both will flatter the already existing historic Levi Stewart Library and other century-old buildings in town.

The cornerstone building is planned as an incubator, providing start-up space for a number of new businesses. Carcieri said he already has commitments from a bakery, a hardware store, a pharmacy, Gifford’s Ice Cream, an antique shop and a general store.

“Can you just picture it in the summer, with baskets of fuchsia hanging off the porch, people sitting around with the smell of fresh baked bread circling around?” Carcieri asked. The building is planned to be the head of a walking trail by Corundel Lake, the second busiest flyway for migrating birds in Maine.

If that vision doesn’t stir the imagination, Carcieri said the entire structure will be lit for the Christmas holidays.

“We are planning to be the one town out of Maine’s entire 430, that will become a true Victorian village at Christmas,” he said. “We will be a destination. It will stop traffic. It will be magical.”

Carcieri and 12 other members of the Corinna Economic Development Association recently obtained an $11,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct a feasibility study on the cornerstone building. “But it’s a foregone conclusion,” Carcieri said this weekend. “Corinna desperately needs every business that will be there.”

Carcieri said the feasibility study should be ready in about 60 days. “Once it is back, we will be able to use it as a tool for fund raising,” he said. By seeking as many grants for the construction as possible, he said the town will be able to keep the rent for space quite affordable. “This will enable the businesses to get the best start possible,” he added.

Meanwhile, construction will begin this summer on senior housing by Penquis CAP in one reconstruction area, while condominiums are planned for another parcel of land. Five lots are still awaiting new owners.

“It’ll take a while, but we’ll get there,” said Carcieri. “The key to this is the town’s positive attitude. Losing a town’s entire downtown area may have proven too much for some communities, but not for Corinna. We’re going to come back bigger and better than ever.”