By Dawn Gagnon
September 19, 2006
BANGOR - The city is getting ready to begin the next phase of redevelopment at Bangor Waterfront on the banks of the Penobscot River. So far, the city has replaced the bulkheads, redone Railroad and Front streets, improved the water's edge and, this year, installed a new heavy-vessel dock. Proposed for the next phase is a roughly 12-acre linear park that would run between the railroad tracks and the Penobscot River, from Railroad Street to the Veterans Remembrance Bridge. The park represents the last phase of public improvements planned for Bangor Waterfront, Rodney McKay, Bangor community and economic development director, noted Monday after the City Council's finance committee, chaired by Councilor Richard Stone, voted to hire a consultant to design it. Private developers would tackle the rest of the development, expected to include a hotel, condominium complex and a commercial building. Councilor Gerry Palmer saw the riverside park as part of a larger pedestrian loop that should connect the downtown, waterfront, golf course and Bass Park. "I've always said it's a string of pearls, and there should be interest all along the way," Palmer said after the meeting. Bangor Waterfront is in the midst of an ongoing transformation fueled by a mix of federal, state and local resources. To date, $9 million has been invested in redeveloping the waterfront, all but 24 percent of that in state and federal dollars, McKay said in a recent interview. McKay said that the congressional delegation recently helped bring home a $321,000 Economic Development Initiative Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to apply to the project. "The consensus thus far seems to be that this area should be a more natural area and much less formal than the improvements completed on Front Street, Railroad Street and along the water edge," McKay noted in a background memo to councilors. During Monday's meeting, councilors agreed to pay a consultant just over $16,000 to help design the park. The city picked the Massachusetts firm Shadley Associates to do the design work. The firm's Pam Shadley led the Carol R. Johnson Associates group that designed the rest of the waterfront improvements before leaving that firm to join that of her husband. "There seems to be consensus that her design services for the completed waterfront area have been a huge success," McKay noted. McKay said last week that Shadley will develop a design proposal for public comment. The actual work is slated to begin next year.
Copyright ©2006, Bangor Daily News
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