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Ribbon-cutting ceremony advances Pearl Street project in Biddeford
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Local officials gather for a ribbon cutting on Thursday for a project on Pearl Street. PHOTO BY ANN FISHER
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BIDDEFORD — Biddeford city officials and developers celebrated the completion of a major road project in what Mayor Alan Casavant called “a new vision for Pearl Street.”
A ribbon-cutting was held Nov. 2 to publicize 900 feet of
new road and utility improvements at the area of downtown off Lincoln Street,
once home to a trash incinerator owned by Maine Energy and Recovery Co.
The $1.3 million project will mean better access to both a
city-owned garage and nearby businesses. The design also set aside a gathering
space for private and public events.
“Ten years ago, who would’ve imagined Pearl Street what it
is today,” Casavant said, leaning heavily in his remarks on Biddeford’s
checkered past as the site of a large trash-to-energy plant.
Between 1987 and 2012, rumbling garbage trucks regularly
traversed the city and a smokestack intermittently emitted particulates and
noxious odors from Maine Energy Recovery Co. (MERC). That changed after the
city purchased the property in 2012.
Casavant called the latest improvement in the downtown area
following a significant revamp of the downtown area over the last decade “a
special milestone” that will stimulate private investment and local jobs.
During his remarks, the mayor also recognized the work of
city staff, whose skill he called “underestimated,” and the construction
company that made the project possible.
“Shaw Brothers managed to pull it off,” Casavant said.
“Pearl Street was actually a place to avoid … There’s a new vision for Pearl
Street.”
Brian Phinney, chief operating officer for the city of
Biddeford, credited funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration,
which made the project possible.
“It’s fantastic,” Phinney said before the press conference.
“We wouldn’t have it without their funding.”
The Pearl Street improvement project is just one cog in the
wheel that keeps turning as efforts to upgrade the property continue.
The MERC tower still looms over the site, but it won’t be
there forever: city officials say the stilled smokestack is slated to come down
within two to four years.
“It’s certainly not immediate,” Assistant City Planner Eric
Freeman said in an earlier phone interview. “The challenge is, there are quite
a few communications towers (on the stack). As those expire they’ll be
relocated.”
“It will be a more favorable position for the city,” said
Freeman. “The intention is to turn it into a public park.”
A request for proposals to design the new Pearl Street
Point Park should be ready before January in time for bids for construction to
go out in spring 2024, Phinney said.
“We’ll see what kind of responses the city gets for design
and preconstruction,” said Freeman. “Then it goes before the public and
council.”
Freeman said the city is applying for federal funding as it
works on the preconstruction phase in a public-private partnership with the
mill district.
A planned expansion of the Biddeford Riverwalk on the Saco
River is part of the park project.
“It wiggles its way through the mill district to connect
the Pearl Street Park Point area and under the railroad bridge,” Freeman
said.
The Riverwalk will then continue down Gooch Street – to be
renamed Upper Falls Way – to a new pedestrian bridge running parallel to the
railroad bridge that now crosses over to Saco Island. The trail will connect to
the Upper Falls pedestrian bridge that spans the Saco River.
“It’s something we’re eager to move forward with,”
Freeman said of the park project.
Ann Fisher is a freelance writer based in Saco. She can be reached at 432-7483.