Condominium project proposed for Ellsworth

ELLSWORTH – A local builder has proposed a 78-unit condominium project for the city’s riverfront – a sharp contrast to recent retail development downtown, but a sign of the city’s growth.

The Tinker Hill Subdivision, sandwiched between Bayside Road (Route 230) and the Union River, would turn 28 acres into 78 condos incrementally over the next nine years. The project also would create 11 single-family house lots on an additional 15 acres, according to paperwork filed with the city’s planning office.

The $20 million development, the city’s largest housing project to date, will go before the Ellsworth planning board for initial approval next week.

“This is by far the biggest [housing] project I’ve been involved with,” City Planner Michele Gagnon said Tuesday.

“I think it’s a great project. It’s on water. It uses land very efficiently. We don’t know what the prices will be, but it provides buyers with another choice that right now is not widely available in the city.”

Dean Hoke, a builder from Orland, developed 12 house lots on property in that area a few years back. Six of those have sold and a dead-end access road, Tinker Farm Way, has been built off Bayside Road.

Attempts to reach Hoke this week were unsuccessful. The project’s engineer, Eero Hedefine of Hancock, declined to comment on the project.

Gagnon, however, said the city is “very excited about this. We’ve been meeting with developers for a long time on this and we feel it will provide one more asset for the city.”

A resident representing the citizens’ group Wise Planning for Ellsworth isn’t so sure the condominiums are what the city needs.

“Who’s going to buy these things?” Todd Little-Siebold said Tuesday. “Condos are not a hot-ticket item in Ellsworth. No one’s moving to the coast to buy a condo.”

While residential growth isn’t new in the city – subdivisions of varying size have been popping up all over – this is the first large-scale, nonretail development in Ellsworth’s urban core.

“This is a pretty good example of the kind of inappropriate growth that Ellsworth is experiencing,” Little-Siebold said. “Not growing is not an option for Ellsworth, but you have to manage it.”

“I think the people that I talk to don’t like what’s happening in town in terms of growth,” he said. “It’s not just big boxes. It’s the rate of subdivisions and all the negative impact of growth on High Street.”

The condo development proposal calls for 12 units to be built by 2008. Another 14 are expected to be completed by 2010, followed by 21 more for 2012. The remaining 31 units will be completed by 2015.

Six of the condo lots border the tidal portion of the Union River, but the application states that only 19,000 square feet of wetland will be disturbed by the development.

It’s still early in the process, but Gagnon said the project hasn’t attracted great controversy – yet.

“Abutters want to know what’s going on, but they seem excited as well,” she said.

A public hearing on the proposal will be included at the planning board meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 2, at City Hall.