LEWISTON – Looking out of his Lisbon Street Getty station, Nick Mitri watched the Southern Gateway development take off.

In less than a year, the city has turned the block from Maple to Birch streets upside down. It has relocated businesses, torn down old buildings, moved in a new college, and is ready to kick off a multimillion-dollar sidewalk project.

Now the development is moving south. Mitri’s gas station is in the path of a proposed boulevard that would connect Lincoln and Bates streets.

“I saw how quickly they moved, across the street,” Mitri said. “So how long do I have? And where do I go when they decide they need my space?”

Mayor Lionel Guay on Thursday unveiled the Heritage Initiative, a 10-year program designed to bring revitalization to the poorest section of the downtown. Plans call for new housing projects along Blake, Birch and Maple streets and new downtown office buildings.

New development would be connected to the rest of the city by a $4.5 million boulevard that would run from Lincoln to Lisbon Street, cut through the Knox and Birch neighborhoods and end at Bates Street.

It would cross blocks of aging tenements in the poorest parts of the city. Some of those buildings would have to come down, but people won’t wake up to bulldozers right away. The city needs federal money to make the project work, and getting that money takes time.

“That money is going to determine the timing of this project,” said Lincoln Jeffers, deputy director of the city’s Economic Development Department. The city needs an estimated $2 million to pay for the land for the road and another $2.5 million to build it.

“Then, when we have the money, we’ll look at what lots the city already owns and what lots we can purchase,” Jeffers said. “More than anything else, that’s going to determine exactly where this road will go and how long it’ll take.”

On Friday, many wondered what would happen to their neighborhoods when that happens.

Where to go?

Robert Schindler has lived on Park Street for 10 years, around the corner from the Ritz Cafe on Maple. According to the plans released Thursday, his apartment would be replaced by the boulevard. The cafe – his hangout for the past decade – would be replaced by a parking lot.

“What will they do with the people who live down here?” Schindler said. “It’ll take my whole Social Security check just to move if they tell me I have to go.”

Janet Joyce of Lisbon frequently visits the Ritz Cafe to visit with Schindler and the other regulars.

“It’s a family here,” Joyce said. “They’re breaking up a family if they tear this place down. This has been these folks’ life for years.”

“He lives here,” Schindler said, pointing out a Ritz Cafe regular. Many live in the apartments over the bar. “He lives here. He used to live here. He just keeps coming back. Where are we all supposed to go?”

But not everyone feels so protective of the area.

“The only thing this place is good for is a road,” said Trina Smith of Knox Street. “Pave it over.”

The area could use a nice park for children, Smith said, but she couldn’t imagine one staying nice in her neighborhood.

“There is no good to Knox Street,” she said.

Green space

Pat Dube of Oak Street agreed that the area needs more parks and open spaces. Children now play in a vacant lot on Birch Street between Knox and Bates. The city’s new boulevard would go right across the impromptu park.

“There has to be more open space for the kids,” Dube said. “This is about all they have. It’s a shame they want to tear it up.”

But that play area is also the scene of nightly violence and constant police complaints, according to neighbors.

“Right there, that’s where a friend of mine got stabbed in the neck,” said Normand Mercier of Park Street.

Natalie Croteau of Birch Street said police are called there nightly, and she’s tired of it.

“I guess it’s about time they do something,” Croteau said. “I mean, look how this street is. A new road here, it wouldn’t be that bad.”

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