Planners OK zone change at racino site Action now goes before full council

BANGOR – After a public hearing Tuesday night that drew only a handful of observers, members of the city’s planning board voted 5-0 to send a request to rezone the site Penn National Gaming Inc. has picked for its $90 million permanent gaming facility on to the City Council with an ought-to-pass recommendation.

The council is slated to take the zone change up during its next regular meeting, set for 7:30 p.m. Monday.

The 9-acre site at issue, referred to as the Riverside Block, encompasses all the land between Lincoln and Dutton streets and from Main Street to the railroad tracks along the Penobscot River.

The change from the current urban service and waterfront development districts to contract waterfront development district designation would pave the way for a 116,000-square-foot gaming facility housing 1,475 slots and accessory uses, including a 1,500-space four-story parking garage and seven-story hotel, according to Helen Edmonds of the Portland law firm Pierce Atwood, a member of Penn National’s development team.

Conditions would include providing at least three off-street parking spaces for every three slot machines and at least the minimum number of off-street parking spots required by the city for any other land uses, such as the hotel. According to background information provided by city Planning Officer David Gould, the property, which now houses one of the two hotels being razed to make way for the racino, has been zoned commercial for many decades.

Before recent waterfront redevelopment efforts began, the waterfront was zoned industrial due to its historical uses, which included a railroad yard.

A small portion of the property in question already zoned waterfront development district is land currently owned by the city that was part of the former rail yard.