OXFORD – Western Maine Development hopes to convince Oxford selectmen to help out a Route 26 business park project by spending $80,000 to make improvements to Number Six Road.

At their Oct. 16 meeting, selectmen will hear a plan by Western Maine Development, the real estate arm of the Growth Council of Oxford Hills, to apply for $240,000 from the state Department of Economic Development. Another $240,000 would be matched by Western Maine Development, which has created a title-holding corporation called the Oxford Development Corporation to create the business park.

The park is planned on 44 acres donated next to Oxford’s new Public Safety Building. It will provide four large industrial lots “at very competitive rates” to attract new manufacturing, said Brett Doney, Western Maine Development’s chief executive officer.

The $480,000 project would create a new road off the Number Six Road about 800 feet from the Route 26 intersection. The new two-way road would have a Y design. It would cross the industrial park land and exit onto Route 26 north of the Public Safety Building.

The Oxford Development Corporation wants the town to commit to spending around $80,000 to resurface the Number Six Road from its intersection with Route 26 to the railroad tracks.

Doney said the Maine Department of Transportation has already agreed to spend $250,000 to fund turning lanes on both ends of the existing Number Six Road-Route 26 intersection, which has a bad blind spot and is offset 30 feet from the Roller Rink Road across the street.

Because of its poor design, the plan is to add the turning lanes for safety and make the existing Number Six Road entrance one way going in.

“There’d be no turning out” to Route 26 from the existing intersection, Doney said.

The 800 feet of resurfaced Number Six Road would make the industrial park feasible for industrial use, he said. People working at the Oxford County Regional Airport and residents living farther up Number Six Road would exit onto Route 26 using the new road, he said.

On Monday, Town Manager Mike Huston said he had heard nothing about the proposal, which would have to be approved by voters.

The town did some minor paving work on Number Six Road this summer, and Doney said “whatever they spent would be credited” to the town’s financial participation in the Municipal Investment Trust Fund application, which is due Nov. 3.

Doney said the project is backed by the Oxford Economic Development Committee, which has met several times to discuss ways to fund the park. Doney, an Oxford resident, serves on the committee, with former Selectman Caldwell Jackson, local realtor Tom Kennison and Oxford Police Chief Ron Kugell.

The money being applied for is part of an economic development bond approved by state voters last November. The $480,000 would also bring three-phase power to the four lots. Western Maine Development has spent around $80,000 on engineering and environmental work on the project, and Doney said WMD would take care of marketing expenses.

In return for the risk that Western Maine Development is taking by building the park, Doney said a tax increment financing district would be requested of voters “so that if we succeed with the park, a portion of the new property tax revenue would come to Western Maine Development.”

If the town agrees to the plan, the improvements could be finished by next spring and marketing can begin on the four lots. “We’re trying to make this as painless and cost effective to the taxpayers as possible,” he said.

Doney added that the work would improve safety in an intersection that has seen a big increase in traffic in recent years. “There’s been a lot of growth in the neighborhood.”

The meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, at the Oxford Town Office at 85 Pleasant St.

ggeraghty@sunjournal.com

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