NORWAY — The Planning Board on Thursday approved the preliminary site plan application “as completed” for an $8.2 million medical office building downtown.

The unanimous approval came with a request for additional information, including how the traffic increase from the Pikes Hill Road project will impact downtown roads.

“It’s a very dangerous intersection,” member Mary Lou St. John said. She requested that more information than just a traffic count and crash reports be required to ensure the safety of motorists and pedestrians who cross the Main Street-Pikes Hill Road-Whitman Street intersection near the building site.

“That’s our issue obviously” Michael Quinn, acting chairman of the board, said.

He addressed Craig Piper, principal architect for SMRT Architects and Engineering of Portland, Leslie Gammon, director of plant operations for Stephens Memorial Hospital, and Tony Panciocco, a civil engineer with the SMRT group, who presented preliminary plans for the project.

John Maloney, senior planner with the Androscoggin Valley of Council of Governments, was hired by the town to represent the board during the application process. He said the next step beyond the requirements of the ordinance would be to do a detailed traffic count.

In August 2014, Western Maine Health, owners of Stephens Memorial Hospital, the adjacent Ripley Medical Building and other facilities, announced the construction of the medical office building as part of a $10 million project to meet increasing out-of-hospital care needs.

The proposed 25,000-square-foot office building will be built on an 8-acre lot purchased by Western Maine Health about seven years ago. The site is the former C.B. Cummings & Sons wood mill on Pikes Hill Road.

Thursday night’s meeting was to determine if the site plan application contained all the information required by the site plan ordinance, including landscape planting, a list of abutters, a stormwater runoff plan, archaeological and historical site impact statements, a certified land survey, location of the 100-year-flood plain and dozens of other items.

Any missing information is noted and required to be submitted before the process continues.

A public hearing is expected to be held in the next two weeks. Abutters will be notified of the date and time by certified mail.

After that, the board has 30 days to approve or reject the project based on its adherence to a set of performance standards detailed in the ordinance. If the board approves the application, ground could be broken in April, according to hospital officials.

Planning Board Chairman Dennis Gray is sitting out the process as a direct abutter to the project. Alternate member Conrad McAllister was given full voting privileges.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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