Lincoln businesses expanding Restaurant, motel latest additions

LINCOLN – Sterling “Boody” Osgood has owned businesses in Lincoln for about 25 of his 61 years and has always liked what he has seen.

“You never really see Lincoln over-expand,” Osgood said Wednesday. “The town never goes through huge [expansions] or huge declines. It [business growth] never gets too big or grows too fast, so it never has all that far to fall.”

That’s the pattern Osgood is following with his latest business expansions. He is adding a 2,000-square-foot restaurant and a 14-room motel to his property at the Why Not Stop? convenience store and gasoline station on West Broadway.

Construction for the restaurant has begun with the pouring of a concrete-slab foundation, while the motel is being designed. If all goes well, the restaurant should open by December, with the motel, the Briarwood II, opening in April, he said.

Osgood will add four more gasoline pumps and another two diesel pumps to the station, he said.

Besides Why Not Stop?, Osgood owns several West Broadway businesses, including Lincoln Rental Systems, the Briarwood Motel, Curves and two Access Auto lots, and he co-owns Smart’s True Value Hardware with Larry Smart.

Already home to a Hannaford Supermarket, NAPA Auto Parts, Aubuchon Hardware, several car dealerships, and about a dozen smaller retailers, West Broadway is the site where several other businesses recently have announced plans or received permits to build.

The biggest is probably Wal-Mart, whose $2.07 million plan calls for tearing down the existing 55,000-square-foot Wal-Mart and creating a 99,000-square-foot building, including an expanded retail area and a full-service grocery store, on about 21 acres at the store’s present location at 250 West Broadway by October 2008.

Wal-Mart’s expansion is probably the greatest motivator to his businesses’ expansions, Osgood said, although he would likely expand anyway, given the other growth around West Broadway.

That includes Health Access Network, which plans to build a 22,000-square-foot building at 175 West Broadway for $4.8 million. Slated to open in October 2008, the office will allow HAN to consolidate six offices and lessen the area’s primary care shortage.

Smaller businesses include a bridal salon adjacent to Capello Hair Studio & Day Spa at 184 West Broadway and a cigarette store and a sweets and bakery shop, which opened earlier this month at the former Lincoln Hobbies shop at 60 West Broadway.

Another store might be added to the mix by Peter Lyons, owner of Lincoln Color Center, 274 West Broadway, with a concrete slab already being poured. Lyons said Wednesday that he would be announcing his plans shortly.

Osgood’s restaurant will seat as many as 18 people but will primarily be a take-out eatery. It will serve American fare such as fried seafood, pizza, sandwiches and flame-broiled burgers, complementing other restaurants on the strip, Osgood said.