NORWAY — Norway Downtown has been awarded one of four statewide grants that will be used to plants trees on Main Street.

The Maine Downtown Center and the Maine Forest Service awarded “Project Canopy” grants earlier this month to Norway and three other Maine Downtown Center communities to plant trees in their downtowns.

Norway requested an $8,000 grant to plant five trees, including a Washington Hawthorne, a variety of crabapple and fastigiate oaks.

Andrea Burns, president of Norway Downtown, said the Norway plan was developed with Tish Carr, Norway’s tree warden.

The Norway project is a continuation of the tree-planting program begun along the west side of Main Street in 2006, according to Burns.

The new program will extend the tree planting to areas in front of the Norway Opera House, the Crane Building and the current Norway Savings Bank Operations Center. Additionally, Burns said the east side of Main Street at Key Bank and a barren parking lot near Pike’s Store will be enhanced with additional trees.

The planting will necessitate the removal of some sidewalk and the installation of plastic grates. That work will be done by the town’s Public Works crew.

Norway Downtown, the Tree Committee and Carr will provide the maintenance over the next three years to water and upkeep the trees. Local businessmen such as Scott Berk at Cafe Nomad and Jedediah David, manager of the Key Bank Operations Center in Norway, have indicated they would volunteer time to maintain the trees.

In her grant application to the Maine Downtown Center, which was co-written with Brenda Melhus, Burns said that the trees will visually enhance the historic downtown area as they continue to revitalize the National Register Historic District. The town was designated a “Main Street Maine” community in 2002 in honor of its character and historic assets and the potential to build a thriving downtown.

The recipients were announced to attendees at MDC’s Downtown Institute session “Green Design, Good Design: Historic Preservation and Smart Energy Solutions” earlier this month.

Grants were also awarded to the city of Saco for elm trees and Japanese lilacs along the Route 1 business district; to Belfast for red maples as part of the city’s Harbor Walk project and to Bath for a total of 45 trees in eight separate planting projects throughout that downtown.

MDC received a $50,000 grant from the Environmental Funders Network’s Quality of Place Initiative to support its Green Downtowns program, now in its third year.

Project Canopy is a collaboration between the Maine Forest Service and GrowSmart Maine and is considered Maine’s urban and community forestry program. Its mission, according to Maine Downtown Center, is to “create and maintain healthy urban and community forests for the economic, ecological and quality of life benefits for Mainers.”

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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