The Auburn Planning Board last week unanimously supported a pair of expansions: Petro’s Ace Hardware is looking to add an exit road, and Futureguard Holdings is adding building.

Petro’s owner John Petrocelli Jr. asked for a zoning change from Suburban Residential to General Business II for two acres of backyard at 965 Minot Ave. to build an exit road for delivery trucks to come in off Minot Avenue and exit via Garfield Road.

A report by city staff said the change would be safer, more efficient and create less noise from trucks’ backup alarms, which are now coming in and leaving via Minot Avenue.

“I essentially bought 44 acres to gain that 100 feet,” Petrocelli told the board. “That’s the whole purpose for buying it, that’s the only option for growth we have. … It would give us more room if we needed it down the road.”

That final decision heads next to the City Council.

The board also unanimously approved Futuregard Holdings’ fourth expansion in two years, this one adding 18,047 square feet for six new loading docks and workspace, and 18,047 square feet for product assembly and finish operations, according to an application filed with the city.

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The company produces retractables, fixed awnings and screen products.

A letter from Mike Gotto of Stoneybrook Consultants said the $1.4 million project on Merrow Road will start immediately and finish in 2020. Futureguard has 90 employees. The expansion could add 10 to 20 more.

“Most of the space is for machinery because we can’t find the people to get the work done,” Gotto told the board last week.

Meanwhile in the Auburn code office . . . 

Among the building permits approved for September:

• $149,214 for baseball field dugouts at Central Maine Community College.

• $300,000 to fit-up space at 245 Center St. for an American Red Cross Donation Center.

• $650,000 to start the first of four planned buildings by Millbran LLC at 1048 Turner St. The first building has 12 apartments with decks and a utility room.

This story originally was published in “The Buzz: Meet The Coal Burned Spoon Sanctuary, treehouses and more coming to Greenwood.” Have a Buzzable tip? Contact staff writer Kathryn Skelton at 207-689-2844 or kskelton@sunjournal.com.


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