FALMOUTH, Maine — Two weeks after protesting what he called a “hastily and arbitrarily conceived” proposed zoning amendment that would prevent big-box retail development along U.S. Route 1, shopping center developer Ben Devine sat down with town councilors to try to work out a compromise.
At the invitation of the Town Council’s Community Development Committee, Devine met with CDC members and town staff on Monday to discuss the amendment’s cap on the size of commercial developments.
On Aug. 7, Devine submitted a letter to councilors and staff urging them to withdraw the amendment, which would limit the footprint of most new or expanded properties to 30,000 square feet.
Devine heads a real estate development firm that is partnering to acquire the Falmouth Shopping Center in the heart of the town’s Route 1 Business District. The deal is pending.
He also owns interests in 20 other New England retail complexes. They include Falmouth Plaza, home of the town’s only big-box store, a Walmart that is now expanding in size from 92,000 to 124,000 square feet.
Devine called the 30,000-square-foot limit “not workable” and said it would “kick out a whole viable section of [potential] real estate.” For example, a new medical office might require a ground-floor area of 50,000 to 70,000 square feet, he said.
Removing the footprint cap would attract such tenants, but not open up the shopping center to the kind of development found at the Maine Mall in South Portland, Devine said.
“The bloom is off the rose for big-box development,” he said. “The reality is [in Falmouth], those companies aren’t coming.”
The CDC has considered larger caps, including one earlier this year that would have limited new single-tenant buildings to a footprint of 90,000 square feet.
Regardless of the exact size, a footprint cap was always part of the zoning changes envisioned for the Route 1 corridor, one CDC member, Councilor Teresa Pierce, said.
The town is considering the changes, as well as infrastructure improvements, in its 10-year attempt to reinvent the district as a pedestrian-friendly “village” of small shops and mixed-use buildings.
“We’ve been working on [the zoning amendment] for quite a while, and the time for action is now,” Pierce said.
Devine, councilors and town staff pored over a map of the existing shopping center and discussed alternative solutions to the zoning dilemma, including allowing new uses for the former Shaw’s supermarket space and making zoning exceptions for specific development projects.
But such exceptions can be “hard to navigate,” Devine said, because prospective tenants and lenders would be skeptical of a development whose size was tightly controlled, even with the understanding that exceptions would be made.
“We need flexibility. The Falmouth Shopping Center currently doesn’t have the flexibility to survive,” he said. “We don’t know what direction the shopping center is going to take.”
Devine repeated a pledge that his firm, Devine Capital, and partner W.P Realty, have no plans to bring a big-box tenant to the shopping center if the sale is completed. But councilors noted that earlier in the meeting he had said adding a 90,000-square-foot tenant would be “the best thing for the shopping center.”
The CDC chairwoman, Councilor Bonny Rodden, said Devine was “disingenuous, and saying a lot of different things.”
Still, she said, the CDC is “willing to continue to talk” with him.
Pierce added, “At the end of the day, the town wants a plan that works for developers today, but also for the next 50 years.”
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Yet another town in Maine trying to hamper the growth of business and industry.
Yet another out-of-state multi-millionaire trying to plop down a big terd in our beatuiful state.
One big store sucks money out of the area as it shuts down several locally owned businesses.
When money is spent in small stores owned by you and your neighbors the money stands a chance of circulating in your area.
When money is spent in a big store it is off to winter on a yacht in the Cayman Islands.Can you think of a country in the world that has done more to help the growth of American business and industry than Switzerland?
Believe in America. Keep your money in Switzerland.
The humble Farmer
We spend 90% of our disposable income within a five mile radius of our house and only with businesses that we know are locally owned. Our money ends up on a pontoon boat in the middle of lake Wassookeag! lol. We are also invited to stop by for a cold beer!
Anybody who is skeptical of Humble’s argument, just look at Ellsworth. Super-W-Mart opened a 4 years ago, and 1 locally owned mall is now over 1/2 vacant, and the other mall is up for sale. That big sucking sound? All your money leaving town!
I was strongly opposed to Walmart coming into Houlton and felt it would shut down locally owned stores. As it is, Walmart actually gives far better service than the locals, whose whole attitude is “it’s my store and I’ll run it my way and if you don’t like it, too bad!” Do I shop at these stores anymore? No. I either go to Walmart or go to Bangor. If they don’t want my business why should I force them to accept it?
You are exactly right, in “The Way It Should Be Land.” Here in reality, the local stores are 30%-50% more expensive than Big Box and the Internet. In down economic times such as these, every dollar a family gets, they have to stretch as far as possible. If you”Ban the Box” local shop owners still lose. People will buy books to big screens via the internet, and make a trek to Sam’s to get a 3 month supply of toilet paper and laundry detergent. Pricing hurts the family shop, plain and simple. Ban the Box and there are still other avenues that will get used long before the local shops.
” reinvent the district as a pedestrian-friendly “village” of small shops ” They have to be crazy, pedestrians on rt 1???
Where you spend your money is just as important as how much you spend. I will gladly pay more at my local market down the street than save a few bucks at wal-mart.