HALLOWELL — A developer is putting forward plans for a new downtown building in a prominent riverside gap that was created after a furniture store burned decades ago.
On Wednesday, Hallowell-based real estate agent Terry Berry will go before the Hallowell Planning Board to discuss a potential building on a vacant lot he owns at 116 Water St. that would fill the gap between Reappearances, a vintage clothing store, and the building formerly occupied by Hoxter’s Music and Sports Bar.
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Hallowell’s city manager called it “a rare opportunity” for the city, but it’s still just an idea.
Berry said he envisions storefronts on the downtown ground floor and condominiums above, but he hasn’t determined the number of floors or what the building’s square footage will be. In the back, there would be a glassed-in deck with a view of the Kennebec River.
Berry said he wants to have an informal talk with board members to see what they would want a new building in the historic downtown to look like.
“I just want to get what they’re thinking and to share with them what I’m thinking,” said Berry, a Gardiner resident who serves on the Gardiner City Council.
A new core building in Hallowell’s downtown is rare: Most of the buildings in that area date to the 1800s and earlier.
Before Hallowell got a historic district in 1970, Maine’s state historian said that of the 45 buildings along Water Street between Winthrop and Temple streets, only three were built in the 1900s. Maureen AuCoin, Hallowell’s assessors’ agent, said aside from small structures, no building has been built in the core downtown area since 1960.
City Manager Michael Starn said the plan is “a rare opportunity.”
“I’m excited about it,” he said. “I hope that Terry can pull it off and I know that there are challenges in front of him for him to be able to do that.”
Those challenges include meeting a host of requirements. Virtually all of Hallowell’s core downtown area is in a floodplain, and the new building would be on a row separated from the Kennebec River only by a narrow parking lot and dirt road.
New downtown buildings must also be compatible with other buildings in the historic district and be approved by the planning board.
To meet federal flood insurance rules, the building planned by Berry would have to be dry floodproofed, which is done by making a structure watertight to prevent floodwater from entering, said Sue Baker, coordinator of the Maine Floodplain Management Program, who has discussed the plans with Berry.
The ordinance outlining Hallowell’s historic district standards has recommendations for new buildings, including that heights, proportions and roof shapes must be “visually compatible” with other structures and that alterations “that have no historical basis and that seek to create an earlier appearance” are discouraged.
Jane Orbeton, chairwoman of Hallowell Planning Board, said she “would not expect to see a replica of the buildings next door,” but something that looks like a modern building.
The lot was home to Verstein’s Furniture Co., which is believed to have burned in 1949. The Kennebec Journal called it “one of the worst fires in Hallowell’s history” and said an explosion broke a window in a men’s shop across the street.
It remained undeveloped and Berry bought the lot in 2008. In recent years, he has been building three two-unit condominiums in a lot on Union Street, between Water and Second streets. He began building the first in 2011, and he said that’s now occupied.
Another will be on the market in the next two years, and Berry said he plans to build a third building. After that, he said he’d like to start building on Water Street — hopefully by late 2017.
“I certainly want it to be something I’m proud of and the citizens of Hallowell and the surrounding area are proud of,” he said.
Michael Shepherd — 370-7652
Twitter: @mikeshepherdme
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