NORWAY – Selectmen on Thursday favored extending the deadline of a downtown study so information from summer visitors could be charted.

The town had hired Craig Freshley and Brian Kent of Policy Development Inc. of Brunswick and Brian W.P. Kent of Kent Associates in Gardiner to review downtown conditions and trends and report on revitalizing the area.

Freshley, who completed a similar study for the Norway Downtown Revitalization Committee last summer, said they would be surveying merchants, customers and then hold a public meeting at the end of May to early June.

He said he would be doing a demographic profile of the area and looking at the spending power of visitors, what they are looking for and what is offered.

“Maybe we’ll find some gaps,” he said.

Jack Shaner, owner of Shaner’s Family Restaurant in Paris, suggested that the research should be extended into the summer.

Selectmen agreed and Town Manager David Holt said he would check with a representative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which issued the Community Development Block Grant paying for the study, to see if the deadline could be extended.

In other business, Oxford County Fair Association member Suzanne Grover received a vote of support from selectmen on a project to erect a community center on the fairgrounds.

She said it would be a basic, white building with a black roof that can seat 250 to 300 people for functions.

Grover said the facility would be open year-round and would probably be on the Oxford side of the fairgrounds, although locating on the Norway side was a possibility.

She said she had $50,000 pledged toward the facility so far and hoped to open by the fall.

In the town manager’s report, Holt told selectmen the town office will have about $25,000 in damage due to the frozen pipe that burst in January.

He said insurance would pay for the damage that included cleanup, replacing carpet, painting and replacing Sheetrock and insulation.

Holt estimated that the repairs would take about one month.

Concerning construction projects Holt said:

• The Beal Street sewer and road project is about half done and that the construction firm would start as soon as the weather allows, most likely in April.

• The bid on the Pikes Hill bridge work will be awarded in April.

• The Marston Street sidewalk project may not happen this summer as planned because the state has held up the money.

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