Bucksport wants a local developer to build housing on a downtown lot that has sat vacant for about a decade.
That comes shortly after the town took the parcel at 27 Main St. back from SFS Development, another area company it sold the land to for $1 in exchange for the construction of mixed-use buildings there within three years, a project that never broke ground.
Chris Pepin, an Orrington real estate agent who has built or redeveloped numerous properties in Bucksport, had also applied back in 2023 to create four to six homes and one to two commercial buildings on the lot. He is now the town’s preferred candidate for its next shot at developing there because of his history of building housing in town.
“This one, there is proof on the streets of Bucksport of what this developer does,” Rich Rotella, the town’s economic and community development director, said Thursday in recommending selling the lot to Pepin. “He follows through.”
Rotella also asked the town for an opportunity to negotiate the specifics of a building proposal and got the nod from councilors at an infrastructure committee meeting. Any project would at least include housing, councilors said. A mixed-use development with commercial space is still possible but not certain, according to Rotella.
It’s another chapter in efforts to increase economic activity in Bucksport post-paper mill and increase the town’s available housing amid a statewide shortage. This particular lot, on the eastern stretch of Main Street downtown, was acquired by the town more than a decade ago so officials could control what was built there, but has yet to see any building.
Rotella also wants to add milestones to this $1 sale, he said, so the town could reacquire the property earlier this time if the project stalled out.
He said he had heard interest from Pepin, who didn’t respond to a Bangor Daily News inquiry this week.
The $1 sale method maximizes the town’s investment by increasing the value of the property and the taxes the town collects by extension, according to Rotella, bringing in more money over the long term than selling it at its current value.
Councilor Tracey Hair agreed with the idea of offering it to Pepin, saying she supported allowing the town to control the lot’s future and emphasizing a need for more housing.
The lot could also be put out to bid instead, though Rotella said he thinks the town should keep control of it to make sure a developer will work with officials and build something they want.
The town could start the process over again, but there has been plenty of time and news coverage of the lot with no other interested developers coming forward, Rotella said, and site progress dragged on slowly for years before that.
Now, there is a willing and able developer with a track record ready to get started “right away,” he said.
“I feel confident that we would have a very good project on 27 Main Street,” he said.
Rotella expects to return to the committee with a project proposal.
