Bangor panel OKs EMHS lab proposal Consolidation aim of research facility

BANGOR – Though it took two takes, members of the city’s planning board Thursday granted Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems the two key approvals it needed to move forward with renovations to the interim home of the Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health.

EMHS’ applications for conditional use and site plan approval originally were set to be taken up Tuesday night during the planning board’s regularly scheduled meeting. The board, however, didn’t have enough members present for a vote that night and action was delayed.

Because the research lab renovation project is on a tight time frame to meet federal grant deadlines, a special meeting was scheduled for Thursday.

The institute, established in 2005, is a subsidiary of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems in Brewer, working in partnership with the University of Maine in Orono and The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor.

The institute recently announced it would move into the Sylvan Road facility in Bangor as part of a consolidation of researchers from facilities scattered in Bangor, Brewer, Orono and Bar Harbor. It will be housed there for about two years, pending the completion of a permanent location at the EMHS campus on Whiting Hill in Brewer.

The institute’s mission is to decrease the risks of disease and improve the health of Maine’s rural communities. Its research will focus on cancer, neurological and psychiatric disorders, and skeletal diseases.

While most of the staff will relocate to the Bangor facility this summer, some scientists will continue their work at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor and some administrative staff will stay at the Cianchette Building in Brewer, according to a recent news release.

During Thursday’s planning board meeting, however, the focus was on the lab’s nuts and bolts.

Consulting engineer Brian Ames described some of the renovation project’s construction details.

In his presentation for board members, Ames said 36 full-time researchers will work out of the lab and that the facility’s regular business hours will run from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays.

Though no structural upgrades are needed, the lab will require exterior propane tanks, a condensing unit, a generator and an exhaust fan, as well as an air-handling unit and a trash container.

In response to questions from planning board members, Ames said the research at the facility will not generate much in the way of fumes or noise. He also said the facility will have a negligible effect on local traffic.