🔒Thomaston is still looking for the right idea at former state prison site

The breathtaking view across Thomaston Green overlooking the St. George River has been open for 18 years. Before that, it was blocked by the massive brick bulk of the Maine State Prison, on the site for 178 years.

While breathtaking views are great, they don’t pay the bills. When the town bought the land in 2005, the plan was to develop it and sell it. A 2006 market analysis estimated developing the site would bring $16 million to the town’s revenue stream.

Thomaston, in 2020, could use the money. The 2019 property tax rate was $20.93 per $1,000 valuation (the state weighted average was $15.06). Despite that, development of the 15.6 acres on U.S. Route 1 is more up in the air than it’s ever been.

Voters at the Sept. 15 annual town meeting rejected a proposal by Avesta Housing. The Portland nonprofit offered $100,000 for 2.25 acres to build 48 units of senior housing. The project would have brought in $55,000 a year in taxes. Voters also shot down a proposal from local group home Coastal Opportunities, which sought 0.75 acres.

The two proposals were the first since 2011.

“We’re a town of 2,700, we’ve got to do something,” says Bill Hahn, a selectman and chairman of the town’s year-old economic development committee. The town has been losing population in recent years and, like many Maine towns, its residents are aging. “We only have so many resources.”

An Oct. 7 public hearing made it clear that figuring out the next step isn’t going to be easy. Residents are torn on how to handle the site. Some want to keep it totally green while others want to see development on the spots originally designated for retail and residential.

Hahn has been part of the town’s Thomaston Green efforts since the prison came down in 2002.

The day after the public hearing, when he’s asked what’s next, he gazes toward that spectacular view of the St. George River and laughs.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I have no idea.”

A mixed-use plan

The town petitioned the state to buy the property in 2002, with development the point. In a 2003 town survey, residents predicted that by 2010 there would be public space, residential and light retail there.

For a while, it looked like the prediction would come true.

An RFP brought several responses, and Portland-based Berman Associates (now known as Developers Collaborative), partnered with the town beginning in 2006 on a village-style plan.

“Not many communities have that type of open space in their core,” says Kevin Bunker of Developers Collaborative. He joined the group in 2007, after founder Richard Berman was already working with Thomaston, and quickly became involved.

The developers in 2008 secured a $221,000 grant that largely developed the public space in the center of the property, infrastructure and an access road.

Design guidelines and mixed-use rezoning were passed at the June 2008 annual town meeting.

Then the recession hit, and Developers Collaborative bowed out.

“The numbers just didn’t work,” Bunker says.

The good and bad

The town worked for a year, from 2011 to 2012, with another developer on a housing proposal that also didn’t pan out.

Meanwhile, the end of town on Route 1 toward Rockland was emerging as a retail mecca. Lowe’s, Walmart and Hampton Inn sprung up in the decade that followed the prison site purchase.

“I was against that at first,” Hahn says. “But I was wrong.”

The commercial strip provides 42.5% of the town’s real estate revenues. The town’s 2020 comprehensive plan estimates the property tax rate would be $28.40 without it.

The downside is that some residents aren’t sure if they want more.

A recurring theme at the recent public hearing was that a lot changes in 15 years.

Some speakers said the site should stay green with an eye toward community events, food trucks, festivals and even wedding rentals.

“If we put something there, we’ll regret it in 10 years,” said Anson Norton.

Amy Williams, who favored keeping it green space, said making it a magnet recreational destination could bring revenue into town “year after year.”

But Sumner Kinney said there’s already green space at the site. “We agreed to that 15 years ago,” he said. “How can you refuse to sell it to a qualified buyer?”

Exciting site

The acreage is something many towns and cities dream of.

At an August meeting, Pat Carroll, of Carroll Landscape Architects, part of Avesta’s team, said, “We don’t get many sites like this in Portland anymore.”

To be able to house seniors near beautiful community space just blocks from downtown, “Is a really exciting thing,” Carroll said.

Bunker says, “As a local, growing up nearby, I would have liked to make something work there.”

But a decade after his firm worked to develop it, “Richard [Berman] and I both think that it makes a great park — and probably ought to stay one. It’s a great asset for the town and could probably be even more so if the town committed to a thoughtful recreational master plan to use it more intensively.”

15 years later

With the developed public space and geography on the property, less than half of it is developable.

“You can’t really put much in here,” Hahn says.

Any commercial development would be along the fringes of the property, along Route 1 or Wadsworth Street.

Voters Sept. 15 approved contracting with Lewiston’s Community Concepts on an economic development director position.

Hahn says the position and year-old economic development committee are an attempt to look at a bigger picture, not just the prison site.

The town has put $555,000 into the site, but there isn’t a big bill to pay.

When the prison closed, the town had just built a wastewater treatment plan that, at the state’s request, was sized to include the prison. The state swapped the $285,000 site for what it owed the town for the treatment plant. The infrastructure at the Green was mostly covered by the 2008 grant.

“There’s not a lot of pressure,” Hahn says.

In the comprehensive plan’s list of the most-heard concerns from residents, the Green isn’t mentioned.

Hahn agrees things can change in 15 years. But on the forefront of the effort to develop the site since 2002, he sees an asset that’s not being taken advantage of.

“We need to figure it out,” he says.