A new rendering of one man’s idea to turn a portion of the Bangor Mall into housing includes walls of windows with a sprawling central skylight and a large central courtyard.
Michael Cole, a spokesperson for the Bangor Marketplace and Residences LLC, shared the rendering with the Bangor Daily News Tuesday.
Cole has been in talks with the mall’s current owner, Namdar Realty Group, for months to purchase and redevelop the building. His plans involve maintaining some retail space in the building, but transforming other parts into assisted living and permanent housing.
Aside from bringing a spate of new housing to a region desperate for it, Cole said selling the condos would help pay for renovations to the rest of the building.
Cole’s plan includes creating roughly 175 condominiums of various sizes in the section of the Bangor Mall that once held Sears, which is 90,000 square feet with 22-foot-tall ceilings. The existing building is big enough to accommodate two floors of housing with additional room to expand.
The smallest units would be studios while larger spaces would hold two-bedroom units with as many as two bathrooms, Cole said.
The units would be available for purchase at market rate, which Cole placed around $275,000 to $375,000, depending on the size of the condo.