LEWISTON – The old St. Dominic’s Regional High School will come down and be replaced by a three-story office building, according to a plan going before the City Council next week.
Community Concepts Inc., a Maine-based affordable-housing provider, will move onto 1.43 acres downtown, east of Kennedy Park, once the city has demolished the building and a neighboring three-unit apartment at 193 Blake St. Crews could begin demolition this fall, with work on the new Community Concepts building beginning early this winter.
The city will need to borrow about $1.1 million to make the deal happen, said City Administrator Jim Bennett. Community Concepts will pay the city about $75,000 per year, enough to cover the debt payments.
The deal does something with the school, vacant now for almost four years, said Mayor Lionel Guay. That’s one of the best parts.
“For one thing, I’m glad to see us using that area for something other than a parking lot,” Guay said. The city has been trying to find a use for the space since the school moved to Auburn in August 2001.
Matt Smith, Community Concepts executive director, said he expects work on the office to begin late this winter or early next spring and wrap up in April 2007. The company will consider beginning work on a 30-unit housing project in 2006, if it can get state affordable-housing aid.
The new building will replace Community Concepts’ Auburn office and consolidate several smaller offices around Androscoggin and Oxford counties. It should bring about 100 jobs to the downtown.
Boulevard gone
The city is also scrapping plans for a controversial boulevard through the downtown. That was part of a development plan announced a year ago called the Heritage Initiative, which was designed to revitalize one of the poorer parts of Lewiston’s downtown.
The boulevard would have connected Lincoln to Bates streets and gone past a Community Concepts office at the intersection of Maple and Park streets. It angered community activists and neighbors, who said it would ruin the area.
“The road wasn’t meant to be the biggest part of the Heritage Initiative,” Bennett said. “It was really tagged on, but it became a lightning rod for the whole project.”
The city met with community members last fall and at a planning session in January to discuss alternatives. They suggested moving the Community Concepts building up to St. Dom’s.
“It didn’t start out as the best alternative, but it became that way the more work we did,” Bennett said. It’s less expensive, first of all. The city would have had to pay about $1.6 million to put Community Concepts on Maple Street, he said. Those costs were still rising, and the city could not put together a final deal on the project.
“Staff has been working on various parts of this project for six weeks, trying to put together the St. Dom’s deal and alternatives,” he said. They presented their work to councilors Tuesday at a closed-door meeting.
Bennett and Guay met with representatives from Empower Lewiston and the Visible Community Thursday afternoon, explaining the St. Dom’s deal. Both groups were critical of the Heritage Initiative’s boulevard and the Community Concepts building.
Alyson Stone, Empower Lewiston’s executive director, gave the deal high marks.
“It brings Community Concepts closer to the residents, and integrates some housing,” Stone said. “I think it really is a positive step. I think it shows the willingness of the city to sit down and discuss things with the people. It’s like a new phase of community-city relations.”
Comments are no longer available on this story