PENOBSCOT — A proposal to build 14 apartments on the site of the former Penobscot Nursing Home has been filed with the Penobscot planning board.
The nursing home, which was once the town’s largest employer, closed in 2014. An assisted living facility at the site closed in 2016.
Skip Eaton, owner of Eaton’s Paving & Excavation, bought the defunct nursing home on 6 acres in 2022, with the intention of redeveloping it under the name Northern Bay Commons.
His plan now starts moving in earnest through the process, after the planning board accepted his preliminary application for the project on Nov. 12. Eaton’s project manager, real estate agent Jamie MacNair, presented the preliminary plan for the development to the board. Eaton was not in attendance.
The board expects to hold a public hearing on the proposed development sometime in January, confirmed by planning board chair Dana Willis in a phone call after the meeting. The exact date has not yet been set.
The development has aroused concerns among neighbors, several of whom delivered a seven-page letter on Sept. 3 to the planning board. In the letter, the neighbors asked 24 questions about the project and the planning board’s process in deciding whether or not to allow the development. The questions included aquifer concerns, septic tank plans, and the materials likely to be included in demolition plans.
The letter, signed by 12 residents who live next to or near the former nursing home, has not been answered by the planning board. While listing their concerns, the residents also state in their letter that they “unanimously agree that the potential exists to create a beneficial addition to our town. We applaud the developer for attempting to convert this dangerous eyesore into a safe, positive addition to Penobscot.”
The plan, referred to by MacNair as “Phase 1,” includes the construction of 14 apartment units: 10 one-bedroom apartments located in two separate buildings, and four two-bedroom apartments located in an additional two buildings.
“Skip and I are both pleased to have finally begun the approval process on Phase 1 of the development of Northern Bay Commons,” MacNair told the Patriot after the meeting. “Our main goal in 2025 is to bring much-needed workforce housing to the Penobscot/Castine area.”
The long, single-story structure of the former nursing home that runs parallel to the North Penobscot Road will be kept intact for Phase 2 of the redevelopment and would include commercial space for “a coffee shop, barbershop, or accountant,” Eaton told the Patriot in October.
On Aug. 20, the three members of Penobscot’s select board signed a letter in support of the project.
“This multi-use subdivision will provide much-needed housing for many and bring in business to the town by way of its professional office spaces for lease. It will take an old abandoned, dilapidated, eye-sore of a facility in the middle of town and turn it into a great source of added property tax revenue,” select board members Harold Hatch, Philip Rapp and Sara Leighton said in their letter.
This article appears through a media partnership with the Penobscot Bay Press.