A group of Orono residents is working toward revitalizing the town’s downtown.
Town residents, along with Town Councilor John Quinn, are part of the Heart of Orono Maine committee created earlier this year. The committee is meant to create ideas and plans for how Orono’s downtown could grow in population, foot traffic and the number of businesses.
Multiple Greater Bangor communities are attempting to revamp their downtown areas to bring in more people. Many towns want to add shops and housing to create a larger tax base and counteract a declining population seen in much of the state.
Although the committee’s goals are seemingly straightforward, members need to decide what they see as possible improvements and where in town they should focus.
“We are looking at from now until fall to really develop some working definitions around what our downtown even is,” Quinn said.
Orono’s 2025 comprehensive plan calls for added housing and a larger workforce to be built up over the next decade. A section of that plan noted downtown as an area for residential and commercial growth.
Multiple spaces that could be turned into mixed-use buildings to allow more people to live above and around shops that they could walk to were outlined in the plan.
The idea for the committee was brought forward by Orono Planning and Economic Development Manager EJ Roach in January as a way to draft a revisioning plan before hiring a consultant to help implement the ideas.
As part of the brainstorming stage, committee members brought forward ideas of making downtown more memorable with different decor and a way to connect residents at its first meeting Tuesday. No specific idea was fleshed out during the meeting.
The six members who attended Tuesday’s meeting are connected to the town in various ways, with some being lifelong residents while others are transplants who work for the University of Maine or a local business.
Every member agreed the area could be improved by shaping it to be more attractive to UMaine students or residents who don’t already go downtown, but people already enjoy it.
“Never have I driven through [Orono] without thinking it’s adorable. But it could probably be a little better,” Emily Hasbrouck said.
The committee will walk through downtown in coming weeks, create questions to gather more community feedback and decide what to focus on in upcoming meetings, Quinn said.
Any ideas or data the group gathers will then be used by the consultant, which has not been hired yet, in combination with the comprehensive plan to implement them, Roach said.
Orono has budgeted $10,000 to hire a consultant, Roach said.
Even without the consultants, there are multiple ways the committee can create change downtown.
Small purchases like lights or new decorations to tweak the area’s ambiance are possible, but aren’t the group’s main goal, Quinn said. Larger changes, including updating town ordinances to more closely follow the goals of the revisioning plan, are possible, Roach said.
“It’s very doable to make changes to accomplish what we want to accomplish, and not slow things down,” Roach said.
