THOMASTON – Is big box development right for midcoast Maine?

“It’s up to you to decide those questions,” Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance told residents Thursday during a forum on large retail development.

According to its Web site, the institute, based in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., is a small organization that promotes sustainable communities.

The 90-minute presentation on what the institute says are the effects of big box development on small towns was hosted by Citizens for Reasonable Growth.

That group makes no secret that it opposes two projects targeted for Thomaston: a 149,000-square-foot Lowe’s home improvement store at the corner of U.S. Route 1 and Dexter Street, and an unspecified 220,000-square-foot retail development on Route 1 known as the Shirley Yattaw Estate property.

In October, the group filed a petition with the town seeking a referendum on restricting the size of single retail stores to 70,000 square feet.

Shortly thereafter, another petition surfaced supporting a referendum to limit the size of such buildings to 150,000 square feet.

Both petitions remain under review by selectmen, the planning board, and attorneys.

To give some perspective to the size of the Lowe’s proposed at the corner of Route 1 and Dexter Street across from Rockland Ford, Citizens for Reasonable Growth used cardboard models at Thursday’s meeting showing Thomaston’s downtown from the Knox Hotel to Thomaston Cafe on one side of Main Street and the business block on the opposite side.

That area measures approximately 150,000 square feet, resident Margaret McCrea said, taking another box representing Lowe’s, which completely covered the downtown model.

Mitchell said there are some falsehoods about the benefits of superstores. Most boast of bringing jobs and tax revenues to communities, she said, but that has to be weighed against losses such as jobs eliminated at smaller businesses and the actual closing of mom-and-pop businesses.

Another comparison offered was that the proposed Lowe’s would equal 49 Montpeliers, the replica of Gen. Henry Knox’s home in Thomaston that is a Route 1 landmark.

Besides potential job losses and closures of smaller retailers, large retailers can burden towns with increased service needs, Mitchell said, and in some cases, the superstores move out of town after a decade or so.

“People are looking to the big box as a panacea,” McCrea said.

One reason retail chains can leave these large buildings behind is that they are so cheap, Mitchell said, pointing to pictures of vacant Wal-Marts in other areas.

Mitchell suggested Thomaston and Rockland discuss “the big picture” regarding big box retail.

“Locally owned businesses help to build a strong economy,” she said.

One idea Mitchell offered for keeping retail growth in check was to form a group that oversees and approves large-scale business growth in the region as has been done on Cape Cod, which in 1990 formed the Cape Cod Commission.

Towns should organize to decide the needs of the area, develop business recruitment strategies, and conduct a market analysis.

In keeping big boxes at bay, some towns, such as Powell, Wyo., Greenfield, Mass., and Middlebury, Vt., have organized community-owned department stores, selling shares to residents, Mitchell said.

Some communities have created incubator businesses, where a building is turned into multiple small businesses, where entrepreneurs can get started.