POLAND — Town officials were pleased with preliminary figures released at Monday night’s public hearings on projects that would promote development along two sections of the Route 26 corridor.

“We can afford to do both at the same time. We should be a happy crowd tonight,” Town Manager Dana Lee said. 

The project at the north end of town would extend the water line from the Poland Regional High School south about a mile and a half to Aggregate Road and Poland Fire Station at an estimated cost of a little under $1 million. 

Funding options include the Downtown Tax Increment Financing District, a state’s Community Development Block Grant, a Small Water Systems Consolidation Grant and the state’s low interest revolving loan program. 

An income survey of the area shows it meets the threshold for a community development grant.

“We can submit an application, but I am sure it will be very competitive,” Lee said.

The state normally funds four or five of the nearly 20 CDBG applications it receives annually. 

Lee estimated that income from the Downtown TIF District could support an $800,000 project. 

Mechanic Falls Water Department Superintendent Steven French said that costs could be lowered if a combination of his crew and Poland Highway Department install the line down Aggregate Road from Route 26 to the Fire Station. French is involved because the water line is coming from the Mechanic Falls system.

Lee pointed out that next summer the Maine DOT reconstruction of Route 26 is expected to continue as far as Brown Road, making financing and implementation of this project an immediate priority.

“The timing will be tight. Once it goes by, we’ll be locked out for five years,” Lee said. 

The project in the South Village area would extend water and sewer lines from the point on Route 122 near the Poland Spring bottling plant, where they now end, out Route 122 to Route 26 and then south of Route 26, serving as far as Shaker Hill Nursery, and north an equal distance on Route 26 toward the Poland Spring Inn. 

The feasibility study team of Norm Chamberlain, from Taylor Engineering Associates, and John Cleveland, of Community Dynamics, has gathered data for two options to serve the South Village area.

In option one, the water-line extension would cost nearly $2 million and the sewer extension under $1.4 million. In option two, the cost to extend water rises to more than $2.7 million and sewer to nearly $1.5 million.

Both options include laying about 2 miles of water and sewer but differ in that the first option would use the existing water tank at Poland Spring to provide backup and adequate pressure for fire protection, and the second option would build a $500,000 tank on Shaker Hill.

The chief difference in the sewer options is that one option has two pumping stations and the other has three. 

According to the feasibility study, money is there for the water line, which many see as a priority. However, the sewer line, less of a priority, can be addressed at some future date.

Revenues from the Poland Spring TIF, earmarked for the development of this area, amount to about $400,000 per year, enough, according to Cleveland, to support a $2.3 million to $2.4 million project.

One issue to be resolved is whether the Auburn Sewer and Water District trustees will agree to take on the extension into Poland’s South Village area. Cleveland said he and Chamberlain will discuss the project with the trustees at their Dec. 9 meeting. 

Commenting on Chamberlain’s cost estimates, Auburn Water and Sewer District Assistant Superintendent John Storer said they were in the right “order of magnitude,” but could not comment on how the trustees might view the project.

Several property owners in the Route 122/ Route 26 area expressed strong support for the project.