RUMFORD — With at least eight housing developments in progress or nearing completion, Town Manager George O’Keefesaid Rumford is growing despite a population loss.

“We’re one of the only places that’s willing to really add housing. And the reason we can add housing here is that we’re 4,000 down from our peak population in 1930, about 10,000,” he said.

“We’re one of the only places in Maine, other than Millinocket and East Millinocket, that has had that kind of population loss, in a town of any substantial size. And the strange thing about our situation is that we didn’t lose the mill. And yet we still lost 40 percent of our population,” he added.

O’Keefe told the Select Board on Nov. 20 that in the next 60 days, the town will have an additional 121 units of housing available.

“If we have capacity in our infrastructure, and capacity in our services, and capacity in our buildings, why wouldn’t we add more people?” O’Keefe said. “And we’ll keep the businesses that we have and we’ll grow some more. But if people want the same prosperity that Rumford had in the 1960s, then we need to have the same level of population as in the 1960s, with jobs, with income, etc.”

He said 58 of the 121 units are beds for assisted living at the former Holy Savior Catholic School at 115 Maine Ave., which will also generate 40 jobs.

“We’ve had a series of meetings with the leadership of Brock Health of Camden, whose going to be operating this living facility. They are preparing for a hiring/job fair to be held in Rumford in the near future,” said O’Keefe, adding that that project is about 60 days from completion.

O’Keeefe said the Holy Savior project took nearly 5 years of work by town staff to complete.

“That project is substantial. It’s receiving no monetary financial support or tax incentives. Just a very cooperative and supportive municipality,” he said.

Brock Health currently has 16 unique facilities across Maine, including Bella Point Bridgton in Oxford County.

O’Keefe said that in January, the construction of Rumford Senior Living, a new multifamily housing development comprising of 33 units of affordable senior (55+) rental housing in Rumford will be completed.

It will be located at 101 Hancock St., the site of a massive fire where three apartment buildings were destroyed on Feb. 9, 2020.

Developers Collaborative, in cooperation with Maine Housing and their funding partners, is making this major investment.

Situated in a four-story building with an additional lower level, the development will feature one-bedroom apartments ranging from 546 SF to 689 SF, with 16 units designed for accessibility. At least 60 percent of the units will be allocated to households earning 50 percent of the Area Median Income or less, with the remaining units designated for those earning 60 percent AMI or less.

In partnership with MaineHousing, seven project-based vouchers will be reserved for tenants with disabilities.

Rumford Senior Living is now accepting applications. Call 1-800-338-8538 for an application or visit https://www.realtyresourcesmanagement.com

“So I’m really, really happy about all those things because we’re making sure this is a place where people want to live, and that people can live,” O’Keefe said. “And the reason why that’s going to happen is because we will do a good job taking care of our elders.”

“We have very strong demand for housing and we have historically low unemployment,” he added. “So when people say, no one is willing to work anymore, it’s because we’re at or very close to full employment.”

O’Keefe said the most important economic strategy is retention.

“If you can’t hold what you have, and particularly your local entrepreneurs, you’re in trouble. And part of retaining the businesses we have here is giving them more customers,” said O’Keefe.

In other projects, O’Keefe said Bangor-based community developer High Tide Capital has owned the former Key Bank facility 119 Congress St., and across the street at 118 Congress St., which houses the Bangor Savings Bank, since November 2023.

The upper three stories of both buildings will be developed for adaptive reuse.

O’Keefe said 119 Congress St. is now complete and has received its temporary certificate of occupancy. “That is 12 units, all one bedroom. Six of those apartments are at market rate, and the other six to a local employer (Sunday River),” he said.

There is a commercial space at the ground level.

Rob Landers, site project manager of Optimum Construction, said the remodel of 119 Congress St. began in April of 2025.

“It’s an amazing building. They don’t make buildings like this anymore,” he said.

Construction included replacing the old apartment units, and the new flooring is all hard wood throughout, while maintaining some of the old characteristics.

O’Keefe said when High Tide Capital awards construction for 118 Congress St., it will be for 55 beds of co-living space, all of it workforce housing for Sunday River. He said completion of that project is about a year away.

Well underway is a project by Kara Wilbur Benson, with 18 housing apartments geared towards working people at Prospect Avenue.

This is at the site where a major fire occurred at the Linnell Motel on 986 Prospect St. in May 2015, which destroyed the main building and displaced 40 guests.

“When you count the sale of Abbott Farm Plaza, plus Key Bank getting renovated and put back into service, plus the Catholic school, plus Hancock Street, plus Prospect Avenue at the motel site, in context with all the other stuff that’s been done up to this point, I’d have to say we’re at an inflection point,” O’Keefe said.

He said two other projects, 3i and Three Peaks, in the Rumford Center Village, are about two years out.

Paul Linet, founder and president of 3i Housing of Maine, based in Topsham, said they are creating an “old-fashioned” New England-style neighborhood with 37 units, which includes 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-bedroom single-family homes, a few two-story duplexes, and two apartment buildings with 16 rental apartments, all on approximately 5.5 acres of a 40-acre parcel at 1380 Route 2.

William and Justin Glad of Three Peaks, LLC are planning to develop the old school site at 16 Andover Road into 23 lots, all single-family detached homes. These will be stick-build homes with preliminary figures of around $300,000.

Also underway is a 40-unit condominium development to be built near Black Mountain in Rumford. Plans for Black Mountain Condo Village call for 20 buildings, each housing two units, with a selection of one-, two- and four-bedroom units.

Kara Wilbur Benson, through her Rumford-based company Dooryard, will manage the build on the 1.5-acre parcel on Glover Road, and the developer is Damariscotta’s Red Hill Road LLC.