WATERVILLE – The 67 apartments in the Hathaway Creative Center are full, and there’s a waiting list of people wanting to move in.

Developer Paul Boghossian plans to make 15 studios available for lease next month in the Water Street building, where artisans can create, demonstrate and sell their wares.

Additional Photos

Peggy Jason relaxes in her apartment in the Hathaway building in Waterville with her dog Buffy. Jason, who worked in the Hathaway mill for 23 years on the same floor as her studio, said, “I love living here. I feel safe and secure.” David Leaming/Morning Sentinel

He has asked state officials to consider moving some state offices to Hathaway, which would bring hundreds of workers to that and two adjacent buildings.

“The state Department of Economic and Community Development visited the building,” Boghossian said. “They loved it — they absolutely loved it, so we are front and center on their radar screen to get some office tenants.”

While there are no current plans to move state offices there, Boghossian said, he has put in a pitch to the state to house the Office of Information Technology, which is looking to relocate into a 50,000-square-foot space with about 200 workers.

The state requires that the office be within 5 miles of the state capital, which would exclude Waterville, but the requirement could be changed, according to Boghossian.

“The state, by statute, is required to give downtown space a preference,” he said. “The fact is, they (state officials) have told us there are other requests coming up within the next few months that are at least that big and don’t have the 5-mile requirement.”

Boghossian is working to fill about 50,000 square feet still available in the 230,000-square-foot Hathaway building, which he developed for about $30 million.

He plans ultimately to develop the former Central Maine Power Co. and Marden’s Surplus & Salvage buildings next door and expects those projects to cost about $60 million.

He also wants to attract a restaurant and brew pub to the Hathaway complex.

“We’re looking diligently for a brew pub with good food to come in there,” Boghossian said. “In this economy, it’s just really hard to get someone to take the jump. We have a couple of people who are interested but nobody who’s said, ‘I’ll do it.’“

He also wants to lure an outdoor retailer that would sell watercraft and coordinate boat trips down the Kennebec River. People could kayak to Hallowell or even to Popham Beach, he said.

“It’s magnificent, once you go under the Carter (Memorial) Bridge,” he said. “All the way to Augusta, you see, maybe, three buildings. You might as well be in the Northwest Territory.”

People’s Salon & Spa on Temple Street has delayed a plan to lease space at Hathaway.

“They still want to move in — they have not been able to secure their financing in this market,” Boghossian said. “They’re still interested.”

More than 400 people now live and work in the Hathaway Creative Center, a former shirt factory that closed in 2003.

Boghossian and his partner, Thomas Niemann, hosted a Hathaway groundbreaking in January 2008, and MaineGeneral Health moved into the third floor of the five-story riverside building that November.

Boghossian said the first residential tenant moved into the building in May 2009.

“April of 2010, less than a year later, we were full,” he said.

Wanda and Charles Theobald, and Wanda’s brother, Jeff Young, own and operate Maynard’s Chocolates on the first floor. Young created a lobster ice cream, a treat popular with Hathaway residents, tourists and other patrons, said Wanda Theobald.

“We’ve made a great connection with a lot of people in the city and in the building,” she said. “We are grateful for every customer that comes through the door. We love the building. It’s beautiful. We would love to see more businesses in here.”

Unique Designs and TD Insurance also lease space there.

Jan Corrigan, TD Insurance account manager, said she was ecstatic when she saw the space for the first time in 2008 and is still very happy.

“I love it,” she said. “My mother-in-law worked in this building for 45 years. The way my office sits, I’m right on the very back of the building overlooking the water. There’s never a bad day.”

Melissa Quirion, a customer service agent for TD, also raves about the space. A fitness center in the building for apartment tenants is now open to building employees, and she plans to take advantage of that, she said.

“We have a view of the river, including in our break room,” Quirion said. “We see sturgeon jumping in the river; we see eagles circling and fishing, searching for their lunches. It’s pretty cool. And it’s nostalgic to think about the fact that we’re working in a former shirt factory that’s been revived to bring a piece of history back.”

Quirion said a lot of TD customers worked at the Hathaway shirt factory and she likes showing them around the building, with its original and restored hardwood floors, exposed brick walls and view of the river.

Jamie Bacon, leasing consultant for the Boulos Co., which manages the apartments, has an office on the first floor. She also lives in one of the apartments.

“I have raised my standards so high after living here,” she said. “If I moved elsewhere, it would have to be my own house.”

Peggy Jason, who lives on the fourth floor, said she worked at C.F. Hathaway Co. for 23 years, sewing buttons on shirt cuffs.

She moved into a Hathaway apartment more than a year ago.

“I love it,” she said. “I am a widow, so I was living by myself on the Webb Road, all alone, no houses around me — nothing. I’m almost 70 years old. I decided it was time to leave my home and go live with my son.”

But she changed her mind because she wanted to maintain her independence, she said. She visited Hathaway, thinking she wouldn’t be able to afford an apartment there, but she found a loft apartment that was perfect.

She said she feels completely safe there.

“It changed my whole life,” she said. “I’m just so happy here and not afraid. I guess that is the biggest thing, to come home and just shut your TV off at night and go to bed and not worry.”

Boghossian and his wife have a Hathaway apartment — the smallest in the building — and it is handy because they have a son who attends Colby, he said.

A Rhode Island resident, Boghossian also attended Colby.

The Hathaway apartments rent for $700 to nearly $2,000 a month, depending on size. Boghossian said he is pleased with the development so far, although the commercial draw has not progressed as quickly as he had hoped.

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