Bangor is about to get 30 new apartments.
The former Country Villa retirement home on Kenduskeag Avenue has been renovated into 30 apartments, most of which are studios with some one-bedroom options.
The renovations are complete and residents can likely begin moving in after Oct. 1, according to Chris Kilgour of Executive Properties, the property management company behind the project.
Once online, the new apartments will help chip away at Maine’s need for tens of thousands of homes to make up for years of underproduction, as determined by the Maine Housing Production Needs Study. Bangor alone has a shortage of 700 apartments that are affordable for people earning $35,000 or less annually, a citywide housing study completed last year found.
“I just hope the people that need this type of housing will see the opportunity,” Kilgour said. “I think they’ll fill up pretty quickly.”
The building’s 300-square-foot studio apartments will be rented for $1,000 and the one-bedroom apartments, which are 600 square feet, will be available for $1,400 per month, Kilgour said. Heat, hot water, electricity and wifi are included, as are on-site laundry facilities.
“I think that’s pretty reasonable, and it’s an area that is not properly catered for in Bangor,” Kilgour said.
The project used the city’s affordable housing density bonus, which puts a cap on how much the apartments can be rented for and allows more units to be built in one location.
At least 51% of the units must be affordable to households making at or below 80% of the local area median income, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development sets annually. For Bangor, one person making 80% of the area median income earns $59,650 annually, or $68,200 for a two-person household.
The affordable housing requirement means residents can’t spend more than one-third of their income on rent, Kilgour said, and tenants can use housing subsidies.
Executive Properties bought the building last year after the retirement home shuttered for financial reasons. The Bangor Planning Board approved the project in November 2025 and crews began converting the units in August, Kilgour said.
The roughly $775,000 renovation involved installing kitchenettes in each room and making other small improvements, but the footprint and layout of the 1,700-square-foot building remained unchanged.
However, what was once an upstairs office and residential space for on-site nurses in the retirement home has become the building’s only three-bedroom apartment. The 1,200-square-foot unit will be rented for $2,200.
The large, ADA-compliant bathrooms in each room also remained intact, making the single-story building suitable for older residents and those with mobility limitations, Kilgour said. The building’s exterior remained the same, though the parking lot was repaved.
The property manager is waiting on one final approval from the city before welcoming tenants, but at least a dozen interested residents have already inquired about applying for an apartment, which Kilgour said illustrates the area’s need for such units.
“For us, the rental market hasn’t really slowed down,” Kilgour said. “When something comes up, sometimes we don’t even advertise it and when we do advertise it, we get a lot of applicants and it’s rented pretty quickly. The demand’s definitely still there and it’s hard for people to find places.”
The new apartments will bring Executive Properties’ rental catalog to roughly 160 apartments across the Bangor area. Those interested in a Country Villa apartment can apply on the company’s website.