Orrington to meet on business park plan

ORRINGTON – Brewer officials and town leaders have been working for years to establish an industrial park at the end of Green Point Road that extends into Orrington and will be owned and operated by the two communities.

Orrington leaders will hold a public hearing Monday on an interlocal agreement to establish the Brewer-Orrington Business and Industrial Park, which will be jointly developed, marketed and managed by both Brewer and the town, if approved.

The meeting is at 6 p.m. in the cafeteria of Central Drive School and the agreement is available at the town hall and on the town’s Web site, orrington.govoffice.com.

The 455-acre business and industrial park has approximately 320 acres in Brewer, and 135 acres in Orrington.

“It is a 50-50 partnership in all aspects – for cost and profits,” Orrington Town Manager Carl Young said Friday.

The area for the proposed development consists of a heart-shaped tract of land at the end of Green Point Road in Brewer. The parcel is bordered by Wiswell Road, Brewer Lake Road and Fields Pond Road.

“There is a row of houses there [on Wiswell] and it’s out behind those houses,” D’arcy Main-Boyington, Brewer economic development director, said Friday. “It extends east and south from the end of the landfill road.

“It’s all undeveloped land,” she said.

Brewer leaders are expected to be presented with the interlocal agreement at its June meeting, Main-Boyington said.

All of the property is owned by Brewer and Orrington, and the business park development would not negatively affect or displace any existing structures, consultant Ron Harriman has said.

The two communities now are in the process of hiring an engineering firm to determine where the wetlands and vernal pools are located on the parcel, which will be needed for permitting and design work.

Orrington’s selectmen’s economic advisory committee will present the proposed agreement to the public Monday, and later in the meeting town leaders will decide whether to place the item on the June annual town meeting warrant for final approval or save it for another future town meeting.

If the plan is approved by both communities, an administrative committee called the Brewer-Orrington Local Development Corp. will be formed to operate the park. The eight-member board of directors for the corporation would consist of a city councilor from Brewer, a selectman from Orrington, the economic development officials from both, one member of the public from Brewer, one member of Orrington’s SEAC committee, and one additional member each, selected by the community leaders.

And the code enforcement officers from the two communities will serve as nonvoting members.

During the permitting and construction period, the economic development officers from both Brewer and Orrington will serve as the management committee.

An entrance would be built off the Wiswell Road, but whether or not a public access road on the Orrington side would be built hasn’t been decided yet.

Since different businesses will need different sized lots and it hasn’t been determined how much of the land is developable, the number of lots in the business and industrial park is still up in the air.

“We’re excited about it,” Main-Boyington said. “This has been a joint project from the beginning.”