BANGOR – Eight years after the nation’s largest retailer announced plans to replace its aging Bangor store, construction of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter on Stillwater Avenue got under way this week.

“They’ve started pouring [concrete] footings,” city Code Enforcement Officer Dan Wellington said Friday. Wellington said the store is scheduled to be completed next May and open the following month.

Developer Wal-Mart Real Estate Trust earlier said it planned to invest nearly $24 million in its new 209,000-square-foot Bangor Supercenter, which will replace an existing 114,000-square-foot store less than a mile away on Springer Drive.

Coming up on a nearby site are a drive-through TD Banknorth branch and a retail building that will house four to six small specialty stores, a representative of developer W/S Kittredge Road LLC confirmed during a planning board meeting on Tuesday.

None of those businesses can open, however, until a series of off-site traffic improvements are finished.

In Wal-Mart’s case, that condition was imposed by the Maine Department of Transportation as a requirement of the Supercenter’s traffic movement permit. In the case of the Kittredge Road’s smaller development, the condition was imposed by the city planning board last year and was reaffirmed this week.

As it stands, both projects would have access from Stillwater Avenue, from a Hogan Road extension the city will build this fall that will run between the Crossroads Plaza shopping center and the Country Inn, and by a shared interior access drive.

The city, which has long planned to extend Hogan Road, last year put that project and other mall area traffic improvements on a fast track to help the Supercenter and other projects move forward.

In April of last year, city councilors approved a commitment letter to the Maine Department of Transportation agreeing to take on a series of off-site traffic improvements, including construction of the Hogan Road extension; the widening of Bangor Mall Boulevard, Springer Drive and Hogan Road; the addition of turning and through lanes on Stillwater Avenue; and improvements to traffic signals throughout the area.

Some of that work has been completed and the rest is slated to begin this fall, according to city officials. The Hogan Road extension project went out to bid this week.

Wal-Mart last year agreed to contribute $250,000 toward the cost of the Hogan Road extension, expected to cost about $400,000. The extension also will involve shifting the end of Kittredge Road closest to Hogan Road to address a tricky intersection angle.

City Engineer Jim Ring said last year that the Hogan Road extension is part of the city’s effort to reduce traffic congestion on Stillwater Avenue.

The city originally planned to build a parallel service road, but that would have required cutting a swath through the Penjajawoc watershed, a concept panned by local environmentalists.

dgagnon@bangordailynews.net

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