GRAY – When Hannaford opened its Gray store in 2009, not only did shoppers have a new place to buy groceries, but it also signaled the start of a new commercial sector.

Downtown Gray, where routes 100, 115, and 26 collide in what is often a traffic snarl, has long been the heart of commercial activity in town. Restaurants, gas stations, pizza shops, laundromats and real estate offices line the roads in and around the Gray Corner intersection.

And while that will likely always be the case, due to the amount of shopping centers and stand-alone establishments near the intersection known as the Crossroads of Maine, recent business openings near Hannaford on Route 26 are proving the development potential of area about a mile north of downtown, where there is more operating space and less traffic congestion.

Norway Savings Bank has recently inked a deal to build a bank in front of Hannaford, and last month, two prominent downtown Gray businesses shifted their operations to 97 Shaker Road, near Hannaford. In addition, two prime lots are for sale across from the supermarket.

To deal with the influx of commercial interest in the area surrounding Hannaford, town leaders are working with the state Department of Transportation on a Route 26 corridor study. According to Doug Webster, Gray’s town planner, the study is looking into the feasibility of rezoning the 1.6 miles of Route 26 extending from the intersection of Route 26A (the recently built Maine Wildlife Park Way) and the intersection of North Raymond Road and Weymouth Road in Dry Mills.

“Even though we’re aware of the traffic concerns in the village, there’s not quite as much business activity in the village and we recognize in the long-term that one area of town where there’s more commercial opportunities might be this 1.6-mile stretch between the bypass and Dry Mills,” Webster said.

Webster said most of the land between the bypass and Dry Mills is zoned residential with a small area of BT, or business transitional. Since commercial interests are targeting the area, the town wants to direct commercial growth in a way that doesn’t clog Route 26, a road that leads to tourist hot spots such as the western Maine lakes and ski areas and the new Oxford Casino.

“So the real magic here is to try to balance the town’s desire to look at that area for commercial development but also preserve the capacity of the corridor, which means the volume of traffic going through there,” he said. “Because clearly there’s a lot of traffic going through there.”

Tangible aspects of that planning strategy would be discussion of a system of traffic lights and new roadway structure, as businesses seek Planning Board approval, that wouldn’t snarl traffic as it’s doing in downtown Gray.

“Those higher volume commercial businesses, the goal would be to locate them around stoplights so you don’t have a lot of left-turning traffic to preserve traffic volumes,” Webster said.

‘It’s a trend’

Debbie Shaw Mancini, a former town councilor and owner of Promiseland Realty, located across from Hannaford, says she’s been observing the Shaker Road shift for years now.

“Promiseland has been here since 2000, so we’ve watched it grow,” Mancini said. “I think that it’s a trend. When the bypass happened, it just changed everything. And to see the casino and all of the businesses up Route 26, it’s the natural progression for Gray that business move this way.”

Mancini said the addition of a commercial sector on Shaker Road is a “natural flow” for the area, one that was destined since Gray is a main exit for turnpike travelers headed to the lakes region and western Maine. She points to the recent public hearing in Gray during which turnpike officials discussed a plan to build a toll plaza on the east side of the turnpike near the entrance to Route 26A. The goal of that redesign, turnpike officials have said, is to reduce traffic in downtown Gray and link the turnpike exit to the new bypass.

The addition of commercial activity near Hannaford “is going to affect Gray and New Gloucester and Poland, and I think with Gray having the turnpike exit where it is and the five roads that come together in Gray Village, it was a natural flow to bring the congestion out of Gray Corner,” Mancini said.

The addition of commercial enterprises also means a more diversified tax base for what has become a bedroom community to Portland and Lewiston-Auburn, she said.

“But residential homes don’t pay the taxes corporations do and so when you have a really good corporate neighbor like Hannaford come in, that’s your anchor and it’ll draw other companies and businesses in,” Mancini said. “So we’re like, wow, what are we going to get now?”

New businesses

One new business town residents are soon to see is Norway Savings Bank, slated to develop one of the two pad sites in front of Hannaford. The bank, which has branches along the Route 26 corridor in Bethel, Norway, South Paris and Portland, is building in Gray to fill the local market.

“Anytime we look at a new branch opportunity, certainly traffic flow is a consideration,” said the bank’s chief financial officer, Brian Shibbles. “It’s along a well-traveled route. You see significant ski traffic going up Route 26. You have the new Oxford Casino that’s adding to the traffic along that stretch. And we do have some established customers in that Gray area.”

Shibbles said the bank had been looking at the Hannaford location since 2007, when Hannaford first announced it would move to the area. It has Planning Board approval to begin construction, with an opening likely in 2014.

“Being next to Hannaford and on that side of the turnpike, it was attractive to us,” Shibbles said.

Companies already making the move up to the Hannaford area are two longtime Gray businesses: Gray True Value Hardware store, owned by Rod and Jill Pooler, and The O’Neil Company, owned by Ray Giandrea. The two have entered a condo arrangement at 97 Shaker Road, located just south of the Route 26A intersection.

The Poolers, who had been in business since 2003 at Gray Corner, moved to Shaker Road to get more retail space as well as better access for customers and delivery trucks.

“At certain times of the day, it was difficult to get in or out of our store in downtown,” Rod Pooler said. “And we had customers complain about that, and a lack of parking.”

Pooler, interviewed just after moving into his new store in early December, said he had two customers the first week who were happy to visit the store outside of busy downtown, which has been made more congested since the turnpike authority raised tolls Nov. 1 at the New Gloucester barrier toll, resulting in more traffic on Route 100 by drivers avoiding the toll.

“We’ve had customers say they’ve seen more traffic in the town of Gray since they raised the tolls on the turnpike,” Pooler said. “It used to be backed up to the American Legion Hall in the mornings, but now it’s backed up almost to Cole Farms because there’s so much more traffic.”

Another benefit of moving out of downtown is vehicular access to retail propane. Pooler said he’s always wanted to tap into the recreational vehicle market as well as homeowners seeking propane for their gas grills.

“One motivator for us was to install the propane filling station, which we didn’t have room to do before,” he said. “So that should be a big asset to the town of Gray. We have it set up to fill the 20-pound tank for your grill or the biggest motor home or camper that they make. They can swing in and we can fill them up. That’s the business we’re going to go after.”

Jill Pooler, who said she commonly had trouble making a left turn into the hardware store’s former location on Route 100, said there’s a shift toward the Hannaford area. But she also hopes downtown can be made workable for traffic.

“I hope they can do something with downtown,” she said. “I love downtowns, and I hate to see it change.”

Webster, the town planner, said the town would be responsible for paying for any improvements to the road system in downtown, but plans are under way for a left-turn lane.

“As there is increasing traffic and increasing development along that section of Main Street, the town will be working with the state toward the necessary traffic improvements in that area, which may at some point include a two-way turn lane, which would help obviously with the left-turning traffic. But, that’s down the pike a little bit,” Webster said.

The O’Neil Company, once situated near Cole Farms on Route 100, moved to Shaker Road in December for similar reasons as the Poolers. The longtime Gray-based distributor with a fleet of three delivery trucks supports businesses throughout northern New England with general and janitorial supplies, paper products, soaps and waxes and other items. The company ran out of room on Route 100 and had to find a bigger location, owner Giandrea said.

“It’s like having 10 pounds of fertilizer in a 5-pound bag,” he said. “So we are adding 35 percent more space and instead of us being in three separate parts of the same building, we’ll be in one almost perfect square of one building, so it’ll be a much more efficient operation.”

Giandrea gets deliveries from big trucks, which had to swing into Route 100 to align with the loading dock. At the new location, truckers have more room to maneuver.

“The drivers who are used to coming to our location on Lewiston Road say it is so much easier to get in and out of this location on Shaker Road,” Giandrea said.

Giandrea also sees Shaker Road as the next commercial growth area for town.

“A couple of friends of mine, when I told them about us moving, they said, ‘Well, that seems to be the direction things are going. That’s the next area for development, out near the new Hannaford,’” he said. “And you look around the state and anywhere there’s a Hannaford there’s always something else that’s close by it. So it’s just a matter of time before you see other businesses open up in that area.

Since the opening of Hannaford on Route 26 in Gray in 2009, the area around the grocery store is shifting from residential to commercial. Two new businesses have already moved to the area and a bank has bought the pad site in front of the supermarket.  
Rod and Jill Pooler, owners of the Gray True Value hardware store, moved their operation to 97 Shaker Road, near Hannaford, in December. Standing in front of their new propane filling station, the Poolers are hoping access by customers to their business will be improved after exiting congested downtown Gray.