The former A.D. Gray School in Waldoboro is set to be demolished and replaced by a 36-unit affordable senior housing development by Volunteers of America. The Waldoboro Planning Board unanimously approved a site plan on Thursday, April 13. The new building’s design will come before the board for a separate approval after resident input. (Bisi Cameron Yee photo, LCN file)
After three years of referendum votes and red tape, the former A.D. Gray School is set to be demolished and a 36-unit affordable senior housing development built in its place.
Volunteers of America Northern New England’s site plan application was approved unanimously with conditions at the Waldoboro Planning Board’s Thursday, April 13 meeting. The new building’s design will come before the board separately after a public forum for resident input.
Norm Chamberlain, project engineer from Westbrook-based Walsh Engineering, and independent architect Robert Foster presented to the planning board.
The building at 56 School St., constructed in 1935 and vacant since 2009, went on the market in 2011. Waldoboro voters approved its transfer to Volunteers of America in June 2022. The sale is still in negotiation.
Chamberlain said the 4.5-acre lot will be split into about two acres with the adjacent parcel across Philbrook Lane remaining under town ownership.
Volunteers of America first proposed converting the building, but a structural assessment in 2021 found its brick façade unstable, among other structural problems.
The proposed new building is three stories high with 36 apartment units. Residents will be restricted by age and income.
Conditions for the site plan approval issued Thursday include letters certifying financial capacity from the organization’s financers and determining water service from the Maine Water Co.
Approval conditions include the addition of a fence at least 6 feet high along the property’s southern boundary to screen neighbor views, with landscaping where a fence is not possible, and at least 33 parking spaces for the 36 units.
The developer will also have to install an additional fire hydrant and water lockbox based on fire chief recommendation.
Another condition for the project is official transfer of the parcel to Volunteers of America from the town.
Before demolition begins, lead-contaminated soil on the site will be encapsulated on site, according to Chamberlain.
The town tested the soil before offering the building for sale and has received a Community Development Block Grant to treat the site before demolition, Waldoboro Planning and Development Director Max Johnstone said. Reports showed lead was the only significant contaminant and came from an unknown source.
Demolition is expected to take place this year for construction to begin next spring.
In that process, developers will also keep an eye out for a time capsule reportedly placed in the building by students at the school.
Public tennis courts on the site will also be removed. According to Johnstone, the unusable courts are in such disrepair that fixing them would likely cost as much as building new ones.
The Waldoboro Select Board has discussed in recent meetings transferring a covenant from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund from that site to the John Foster Little League Field on Kalers Corner Road or building new courts on the former Sylvania site on Friendship Road.
The conservation fund provided the town with funds to build the courts in the 1970s with the restriction that the land always be available for recreation. If the obligation is transferred, Waldoboro will return to good standing and be eligible for grants again, possibly one to build tennis courts in another location.
Questions from the planning board centered on the building’s design and number of proposed parking spaces.
Two forums for resident input on the project’s embattled design were held in the morning and evening of April 10. An additional forum is planned for 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 27 at the town office and online.
Though the final design will be submitted in a separate meeting for approval after resident input, preliminary renderings presented Thursday feature a flat roof.
Pitched-roof designs shown at the project’s pre-application review by the planning board earlier this year would likely add about 12 feet in height to the project, according to Chamberlain. A pitched roof would also increase the scale of the building within the residential neighborhood, he said.
He said flat roofs are “designed to support anything we get” in weather, and a snowfall heavy enough to need shoveling would present the same problem with a pitched roof.
The flat roof would provide space for mechanical equipment, heat pumps and condensers, and potential solar panels in the future, according to Chamberlain.
This point continued in discussion of the historical impression of the building, which board members and residents have questioned at previous meetings.
The parcel is in the village’s historic district, where new building is guided by design standards that Waldoboro Planning Board Chair Brendan McGuirl characterized as “ambiguous” and essentially at the discretion of planning board members.
Waldoboro’s land use ordinance says new buildings in the district should be visually “compatible with the scale and character of the … neighborhood.”
Chamberlain said the addition of historic detailing will raise costs on the project’s limited budget, and that the ultimate goal is for the building to blend in to the neighborhood rather than to make a statement.
Questions were also raised about the proposed 33 parking spaces, a number lower than the number of units, as directed by the ordinance. Volunteers of America’s application stated that, in similar projects, parking lots with one-to-one spaces to units are typically less than half used.
Chamberlain said that adding more than two additional spaces would require new plans for stormwater control, drainage, and other essential components of the site plan.
Board members discussed adding a condition of approval to increase spaces as needed and ultimately approved the 33 spaces.
Draft renderings of the building design are available on the town website, waldoboromaine.org.
A public forum for input on the design will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 27, in the town office and online. Comments can also be emailed to planning@waldoboromaine.org.
The building’s design will come before the board for approval at a later date.
The Waldoboro Planning Board will next meet at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 11 in the town office and online.
