Orono hopes to bring housing to a roughly 3.5-acre property that has sat untouched since late 2015, but it will likely be more than a year before a plan emerges.
In late March, the town issued a request for proposals asking developers to submit their ideas for the property at 98 Penobscot St. While it was open to housing, commercial development or another project, the Orono Town Council this week rejected the only two responses to definitely pursue housing through its comprehensive planning process.
More municipalities are developing their unused land as a way to address the housing crisis that’s affecting towns throughout Maine. Orono’s forthcoming comprehensive plan, which will be an update to the one adopted in 2014, will help shape the town’s development in the coming years, said Dan Demeritt, the council’s chairperson.
“We’ve got a crunch,” he said Wednesday. “We need places for people to live, especially early-career professionals, that are more affordable.”
One of the responses to the town’s request came from Pike Project Development, which proposed buying the property to turn into its new company headquarters with a solar array, electric chargers for its fleet and a dog park that would later be turned over to the town. The other response, from R. Haus LLC, proposed a mix of affordable and market-rate housing, a center for makers, and a solar panel installation.
Reviewing the proposals helped the council narrow its focus, said Demeritt, who hopes the developers might be interested in working with the town down the line.
A 13-member committee has already begun work on the comprehensive plan, which will take 18 months. Demeritt hopes the process will reveal how the town can best prepare the property for housing, including how to zone it and who to potentially partner with to execute the project. Eventually another request for proposals will go out, he said.
“It’s important that we try to add housing in areas where Orono is already developed and has infrastructure like water and sewer in place,” he said.
The Penobscot Street property is the former home of the public works department before it moved to a newly built facility in December 2015. The site is on Orono’s east side, near residential properties, a recreational trails system and the University of Maine.
A 2019 appraisal valued the property at $75,000 to $125,000, depending on how it would be used.
A Maine Department of Environmental Protection review proposed that the site could be repurposed into single-family housing, a multi-unit residential development or a commercial or industrial business. It could also become a mixed-use complex including two or more of these options.
A 7,000-square-foot metal garage remains on the property from when the public works department was there. The vacant building is in disrepair and would require significant improvements if the town were to use it again, according to an engineering consultant’s July 2023 report.
