The city of Caribou and the Maine Department of Transportation are moving forward to study access points that would support development along a state-controlled stretch of Route 1 in the city.
Within that corridor, which runs from the Dow Siding Road to Cary Medical Center, direct access is exclusively determined by the state. That makes it difficult, if not impossible, for many properties, some owned by the city or local developers, to be developed.
In an effort to change that, the City Council has allocated more than $52,000 to a DOT Planning Partnership Initiative study, with 40% funded by Caribou and 60% funded by the state. The DOT estimates a total cost of $131,712.
Caribou’s portion of the bill will be covered by revenue from the tax increment financing district within its R/C-2 residential/commercial district, which connects to a stretch of Route 1 within the scope of the project. TIF revenue is designed to fund public infrastructure and development projects.
“This is a huge victory for us,” Councilor Dan Bagley said at the Oct. 20 City Council meeting when the funding was approved. “I was at that first meeting and we walked into the room, laid out our concerns, and it wasn’t ‘no,’ it was ‘hell no.’ And by the end of the meeting and then subsequent meetings, we actually convinced [the DOT] through some compelling arguments that, you know what, this kind of does make sense.”
The stretch of Route 1 the DOT will study is considered a controlled-access highway, where the state limits entrances to for what it defines as “safety and efficiency reasons.”
Some of the parcels of land along that stretch already have municipal water and sewer infrastructure available, but have limited development potential without new access points, Eric Sanderson, Caribou’s economic and community development specialist, said Wednesday.
“The end result of the plan will be a path forward to transportation related projects that improve access, walkability, and identify ways to safely support new development along the corridor,” Sanderson said.
It’s a project that has been in the works for more than a year, and one that Sanderson says fits within Caribou’s 10-year comprehensive plan that runs through 2034. The plan advocates for the DOT to modify the current limited-access status of that Route 1 corridor, he said. If granted, new access points would be a major step toward mixed-use development along the road.
A draft scope of work for the project currently includes identifying parcels ready for commercial or residential development in Caribou and improvements to Route 1 that would support “economic opportunity” in the proximity of those parcels, according to an Oct. 20 memo.
A series of steps within the study, including public meetings, parcel analysis, project management evaluation and transportation system recommendations will culminate in a final report, the memo said, that will influence the future of the initiative.
A timeline for that process is currently unclear, but a DOT cost estimate details 616 combined hours of work to complete the study from a project manager, a traffic engineer, a highway engineer, a planner, an environmental consultant and technicians.