Cannery redevelopment plan to air this week

BELFAST – City officials are hoping that the second time around will prove to be a successful development of the former Stinson Seafoods sardine packing plant on the city’s waterfront.

The city has scheduled a public meeting this week with its various regulatory boards and committees to review a new proposal to develop the property.

An earlier $8 million project on the 3-acre site was abandoned a year ago when developer Tom Roberts and his partners ran into financial problems.

The meeting with the new development group hoping to turn the project around will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 31, at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center. The principals will give the City Council, planning board, harbor committee, intown design review committee and comprehensive plan committee an overview of the project.

“It was terribly disappointing when they stopped work on the project last year, and I think there is a lot of hope and excitement about the fact that we are going to see that property redeveloped,” Mayor Michael Hurley said Saturday.

Hurley said he did not know the identity of all the players involved in the plan to redevelop the Stinson site but that he had assurances that this development group had the wherewithal to bring the project to completion.

“There are new people coming in with their eyes wide open, and they seem to be quite secure financially. I think everybody is quite excited to meet with them and work with them,” he said. “The number one thing people want to see down there is mixed use, and I think that kind of project is what we’re looking at. What they don’t want to see down there is a gated, condominium project. We’re looking for a marine use, public space and a restaurant as well as new residences.”

The initial project, called Wakeag Landing, called for a mixed use, residential, commercial and marine development. It was approved by the City Council after a year of hearings and planning sessions between Roberts and the various city committees.

The mixed-use project was permitted under a special contract rezoning agreement, and the new developers will have to undergo a similar process before building permits can be issued.

City planner Wayne Marshall said last week that amending the contract rezoning agreement for a revised development should not take as long to iron out as it did for the Wakeag Landing project.

Marshall, who also declined to identify the developers, said the participants had a proven track record with other projects. He said some of the parties were from out of state but that one member of the group had a Camden connection.

He said the plans call for more residences than Roberts had proposed but that there were commercial aspects to the project as well. Both Hurley and Marshall said they understood that Roberts would continue to play a role in the project.

The Roberts project included an agreement with Wayfarer Marine of Camden to operate the marina portion of the development.

In conjunction with that, the city agreed to lease its property abutting the Wakeag Landing site to Wayfarer for boat storage and repairs. That deal was put on hold when work stopped on the Wakeag Landing project last winter.

“We’re looking forward to working with this new group, and we’re hopeful that they can finish the project,” Hurley said. “It’s an odd site with a city right of way running through the middle of it and will require a lot of consideration about a lot of different angles under contract rezoning. We’re very hopeful that Wayfarer Marine will still be part of the equation.”