A project to build a new quarter-mile road to a site where the state plans to construct a new $55 million judicial center could lead to other improvements and developments around the courthouse site, Ellsworth officials said.
A parking lot for the Down East Sunrise Trail could finally be built in Ellsworth near the new courthouse site off Merrill Lane, according to City Manager Charles Pearce.
The trail ends in Ellsworth by the Comfort Inn, but there is no public parking in the city designated for users of the trail. The nearest public parking for the roughly 90-mile trail, which extends east from Ellsworth to Pembroke in Washington County, currently is three miles away at Washington Junction in the neighboring town of Hancock.
The courthouse development also opens the possibility of building public access into the Card Brook wetland on the east side of High Street, Pearce said. If the city gets an easement on part of the state-owned courthouse property, it would look into building a boardwalk trail — using grant money it hasn’t yet applied for — along part of Card Brook.
To make these improvements possible, and as part of an agreement with the state on where the new judicial center will be built, the city has taken on the cost of extending Merrill Lane to the courthouse site, at a cost it has estimated to be approximately $1.5 million.
As part of that development, the city this summer purchased a narrow strip of land from the Merrill family and from Troy Adams, who own separate parcels between High Street and the courthouse site.
The city paid the Merrills $175,000 for a 66-foot-wide strip across their property, between the Feed & Seed farm store and an existing warehouse for the family’s furniture business, and paid Adams $29,000 for an abutting strip of land of the same width across his parcel to the east, according to transfer tax declaration documents filed with the state.
With the city now owning the strip that cuts through both properties, the Merrills and Adams still own their land on either side of the planned road, and can consider potential further development along the road, city officials said. The road is being built with sidewalks and underground water and sewer lines that the state and directly abutting landowners can tie into, which will help encourage development, they said.
“The courthouse and Merrill Lane extension create more than just a road – they create space for new housing, commercial investment, and enhanced recreational access,” said Patrick Lyons, chairman of Ellsworth’s City Council.
Pearce said one possibility he sees for supporting additional development along Merrill Lane, once the extension is completed, is to create a tax increment financing district along the roadway. A TIF district could specifically set aside property tax revenue at identified properties to help fund certain improvements that would incentivize developers and benefit taxpayers over the long term, he said.
“I could see this being eligible for a TIF, maybe to offset infrastructure costs or to promote housing development,” Pearce said.
Many local residents and civic leaders have said that as real estate prices have soared in Maine in recent years, Ellsworth needs more affordable housing in order to attract new residents and broaden the city’s property tax base.
