BRUNSWICK — A $3.35 million, 240-acre deal involving former military housing in Brunswick and Topsham closed Thursday between the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (MRRA) and developer George Schott’s company, Affordable Midcoast Housing (AMH).
The deal involves land beneath approximately 700 former military housing units associated with Brunswick Naval Air Station, which closed in May 2011.
Now owner of both the residences and the land beneath them, Schott plans to sell some of the properties, beginning with 19 homes along McKeen Street.
In total, that McKeen Street neighborhood includes roughly 211 homes. Maintenance work began there last month on what Schott estimated to be a $2 million road improvement and infrastructure project.
A housing disposition plan signed by MRRA and AMH specifies that the rest of the homes in that development — valued at between $100,000 and $140,000 apiece — will be sold in phases of around 40 homes over the next five to six years.
Before sales of homes on the interior of that development begin, Schott said, he will seek to have the town of Brunswick take over maintenance of the roads and public utilities in that neighborhood.
Before the deal completed Thursday, Schott owned only the houses, but not the land beneath them. The Navy conveyed the land and residences separately as a result of a unique lease arrangement forged by GMH Housing and the Navy before a 2005 Base Realignment and Closure commission voted to shut Brunswick Naval Air Station created the scenario in which the residences and land beneath them were conveyed separately as part of civilian redevelopment of the former air base and associated properties.
As a part of the deal completed Thursday, MRRA will retain ownership of 12 housing units on the former base.
Aside from the McKeen Street properties, the deal transfers land at the Mariner Landing, Midway Terrace, Brunswick Gardens, Woodland Village and Station Quarters neighborhoods to AMH.
Homes in those developments are to go on the market sometime in 2014 or 2015, according to the housing disposition plan for those properties.
Steve Levesque, MRRA’s executive director, announced the closure of the deal in an email Thursday to town officials and The Times Record.
dfishell@timesrecord.com
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