MAINE — Smart growth is a common-sense concept that helps communities welcome – and navigate – growth where it makes sense for the long term while still maintaining Maine’s iconic historic downtowns and neighborhoods, and natural beauty.

GrowSmart Maine’s seventh annual Maine Smart Growth Awards recognize the diverse activities that contribute to smart growth and serve as real-life illustrations of the benefits it can bring. A video recognizing this year’s four winners was presented at the GrowSmart Maine Summit 2024 on October 21st.

This year’s winners showcase bold solutions to such challenges as designing equitable transportation choices in rural Aroostook county and restitching together a neighborhood on Portland’s peninsula.  We also showcase two Mainers who have a track record of smart growth development and a longstanding housing policy that has incentivized new housing projects that align with smart growth outcomes.

This year’s judges were C.J. Opperthauser, Executive Director of Friends of Congress Square Park; Sarah Haggerty, Conservation Biologist/GIS Manager at Maine Audubon; and Heather Spalding, Deputy Director and Senior Policy Director at MOFGA.

“We are pleased to present this year’s Maine Smart Growth Awards,” said Nancy Smith, CEO of GrowSmart Maine. “These recipients stood out in an incredibly competitive pool of nominations which  underscore the abundance of plans, projects, policies, and practitioners around Maine that have centered smart growth outcomes as a guiding star. Congratulations to the award winners and keep up the great work!”

The 2024 winners are:

Exemplary Smart Growth Plan: Presque Isle Main Street Study

City of Presque Isle and Maine Department of Transportation

The City of Presque Isle and MaineDOT contracted with T.Y. Lin International and Rasor Landscape Architecture to develop recommendations for both short and long-term improvements in the downtown area of the City. The purpose of the study was to improve accessibility and safety for all transportation modes while complementing local economic development strategies and objectives. In particular, a major focus of the study was improving existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities and identifying new facilities that improve connectivity from the University of Maine at Presque Isle and underserved neighborhoods to the downtown and local businesses. This was determined to be critically important given a relatively low level of automobile ownership. The proposed design creates in many places fully protected or separated facilities that offer safe, comfortable, and enjoyable spaces for enhanced walkability. To accomplish this, the study applied “complete streets” principles and “right-sized” roadways and intersections thus creating a transportation system that is safe and balanced for all users.

Community members have used the word “transformational” at public meetings when describing the downtown redesign because the right sizing of the transportation infrastructure will allow a rediscovery and reconnection of the Presque Isle’s greatest assets such as Main Street, schools, recreation facilities, UMPI, the riverfront, the surrounding residential neighborhoods, and open spaces. People understand that the redesign is an opportunity to reclaim the downtown as the heart of the community where meaningful relationships and traditions can flourish.

Exemplary Smart Growth Project:

Mercy Hospital State Street Campus Redevelopment

NewHeight Redfern and Community Housing of Maine/Portland Housing Authority

Redevelopment of the Mercy Hospital State Street campus into a high-density, mixed-income residential campus is an excellent example of smart growth. This project features adaptive reuse of the historic hospital building, creation of outdoor public space in a shared woonerf, improvements to existing utility infrastructure, implementation of a Traffic Demand Management Plan to encourage and support alternative forms of transportation, and homes both for rent and for sale in an existing urban center. In addition, the redevelopment transformed surface parking into housing, recreated the street wall along Winter Street, and stitched back together the neighborhood that had been divided when the hospital was built.

Of the 269 new housing units, many are dedicated to affordable housing. 10% of the Nightingale apartments are set aside for workforce housing. Equinox and Winter Landing, being built with Community Housing of Maine and the Portland Housing Authority, will offer affordable housing to families and older adults making between 50-60% of the area median income. In addition, Winter Landing will include 15 units for long-term homeless older adults. The Equinox includes 10 units for persons in recovery from substance use disorder who are seeking family reunification.

By redeveloping an existing campus, this project directs additional growth into an already dense, downtown residential housing area where public transportation is readily accessible. Community gathering space is created with a shared woonerf that knits the block together and allows for enhanced pedestrian access while also accommodating vehicles. Provisions for eco-friendly transit include the new bus stop and ample bicycle storage.

Outstanding Public Policy

MaineHousing Qualified Allocation Plan

MaineHousing

For nearly two decades MaineHousing’s Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP), which is the basis for affordable housing tax credit awards, has incorporated “smart growth” principles and rewarded developers and communities that embrace smart growth principles in their housing developments. The current QAP awards up to 15 points (out of 85 possible) for Smart Growth developments. This can often be the difference between whether an affordable housing development ultimately receives the financing it needs toward completion.

All over Maine, there are tangible examples of how MaineHousing’s embrace of Smart Growth principles for housing often becomes the anchoring piece for the revitalization of a downtown or village center community. This long-standing commitment to the principles of Smart Growth, including the key element of backing Smart Growth housing developments, both encourages and rewards those who do more than just talk about limiting sprawl, increasing housing density, or reusing historic buildings.

Outstanding Smart Growth Practitioners

Jon and Cindy Smith

Great Falls Construction

Jon and Cindy Smith are President and Vice President respectively of Great Falls Construction, a family owned and operated design build, construction management, general contractor, developer located in Gorham, Maine. When envisioning smart growth and how that plays out in tangible terms within a community, one think of projects like:

The 109 Main Street or Station Square developments in Gorham (previous Maine Smart Growth Award winning project),

South Windham’s Fire Station redevelopment into ‘Red City Ale’,

Berwick’s ‘The Edge’ redevelopment of the former Prime Tanning Facility,

The complete renovation of Sebago’s ‘Richard’s Dairy Delight’.

These developments, design-built by Great Falls Construction with Jon and Cindy at the helm, range throughout different communities in Maine but all seek to foster one thing: community. It is their commitment to safe, sustainable, quality, attractive, village center development that enhances our sense of place allowing for strength to continue to grow throughout our communities.