WESTBROOK – Michelle and Lloyd Hendrix bought their house in the Prides Corner area two years ago because they liked how it was rural yet close enough to the city atmosphere to get the best of both worlds.

The Hendrixes say while development is good, they don’t want to see any big-box stores crowding them in their own backyard.

Steve and Tracey Chambers own a spa and tattoo shop, Viola Hair and Day Spa and Halcyon Tattoo, right at Prides Corner. They are hoping a forward-looking plan to bring development and new businesses in the area gets residents’ support – increased foot traffic will help their businesses and the area grow in general.

The divergent opinions are typical of what is emerging as Prides Corner residents get the opportunity to help weigh in on what they want the area to look like as it grows during the next 20 years. And while residents are so far unable to agree on how they want that growth to look, they do agree that something needs to be done about the traffic-heavy corridor that cuts Prides Corner in half.

The Prides Corner land-use study and growth plan looks at how to best utilize 115 acres of an emerging mixed-use commercial center that acts more as a gateway between Portland and the Lakes Region than a neighborhood in Westbrook. But the area is on the verge of a change. There are 29 acres of vacant property, including the Prides Corner Elementary School, which has been on the market for nearly a year.

While in its early stage, the aim of the plan is to map out the future for growth in the area and how best to facilitate that growth as a mixed-use commercial corridor, bringing in more densely compact businesses and homes while reducing the heavy-flowing traffic.

As part of the Comprehensive Plan goals, city officials are looking at ways to maintain the community character of the neighborhood, while encouraging and monitoring its growth. Working with a grant from the Greater Portland Council of Governments administered by Sustain Southern Maine, Westbrook hired consultants to map out a potential future for Prides Corner, which imagines a neighborhood with crosswalks, sidewalks, shops and eateries.

On May 22, more than 100 people with ties to the Prides Corner and Route 302 corridor met to view and discuss preliminary plans for what that area could look like in 20 years. The plan includes adding businesses along the roadway, building residential areas off the road and adding wider sidewalks and a green median along the center of the street to slow down the traffic and create a more pedestrian-friendly neighborhood.

“If there is a passion around a concept we will work together and your passion translates to the City Council spending money, and that could mean these things happen sooner,” Molly Just, Westbrook’s city planner, told the group. “Tonight, we’re here to gauge the interest and the concepts. If you don’t like them, nothing happens.”

During the session, residents asked questions and wrote their suggestions on what they liked and didn’t like about the plan, so Just and other officials can review what to focus on and what to change.

“We’re in the early stages. None of these ideas are cast in stone,” said Just.

Just opened the meeting by showing a bird’s-eye view of the section, which encompasses Bridgton Road (Route 302), from the Green Flea flea market to La Bella Villa Condominiums and about 2,000 feet on both Brook Street and Pride Street from where they intersect with Route 302.

The view shows additional roads in as-yet-underdeveloped parts of the Prides Corner area, which would help create residential pockets off the main road and could help relieve some of the congestion that occurs on Route 302 during peak hours. There are also potential walking and bike paths and bus routes and an entirely new roadway, all with the aim to slow down the traffic flow and invite people to get out of their cars and walk a new business sector that could develop in the area.

“Everything you see here, this is 20, 30, 40 years out. Nothing like this is going to happen in some of our lifetimes. The area is zoned to grow and you as people that live here, you think about how you want the area to grow. If it grows willy nilly, you might not like the look of it,” said Carol Morris, of Morris Communications, part of the consulting team working on the plan for growth in Prides Corner.

And with approximately nine parcels left underdeveloped or vacant, including the Prides Corner Elementary School and Wormell Farm, a 111-acre property that sits mostly outside of the project’s boundary but has land running along Bridgton Road and Brook Street, neighbors have begun to worry about what is coming next.

“I don’t see the need for commercial entities in Prides Corner. I believe having commercial activity will change Prides and not necessarily for the better,” said Barbara Henckel, a resident.

Kelly Reed, another resident, said she was primarily concerned that new development would mean more houses and families, which could impact the class size in Westbrook schools, a concern echoed by Westbrook residents during a meeting earlier this month with School Superintendent Marc Gousse to discuss the first year of school reconfiguration.

Westbrook Housing Executive Director Chris LaRoche was at the Prides Corner meeting to get a sense of what the people wanted from the plan. As of now, he said, there were no plans for Westbrook Housing to build in the area, but ultimately that could be the will of the public.

“The community may say, ‘No housing here,’ but time will tell. We exist to work in concert with what the people want to see,” LaRoche said.

With such a long turnaround time and with the plan in the very early stages, residents don’t have a fully developed picture on what they want; they just know it should be easier to walk around their neighborhood.

“I do occasionally try to walk but it’s difficult to get across 302,” said neighborhood resident Jeanne Twigg.

Mary Beth Driskell said she’s witnessed a number of accidents along Route 302 and hopes adding a traffic light at the intersection of Duck Pond and Hardy Roads along Route 302 will lessen the traffic impact on the entire corridor, or at least start the process.

“It’s a fatal accident waiting to happen there. I’ve seen it myself,” Driskell said.

The Duck Pond and Route 302 intersection is out of the area looking to be addressed under the plan, but residents have met with the Maine Department of Transportation to hear how that intersection can be improved, as well. The state said during a public meeting in April that the intersection did not have enough vehicles driving on it to warrant a traffic signal, the preferred fix among residents, but the state could install a roundabout if residents agreed to that plan. The Duck Pond intersection plan is still years away from a groundbreaking.

“I don’t see how they’re going to ease up the flow of traffic. Having more there will draw more traffic, but it would be nice if it felt more like a town center, a destination place,” said Tracey Chambers.

Just said the Prides Corner plan was started because the city just completed its Comprehensive Plan and that called for a renewed look at the Prides Corner area and how to bring that neighborhood feel into the traffic-heavy corridor.

Prides Corner is also one of nine neighborhoods to be studied through a federal grant. Other neighborhoods involved in the pilot program include West Kennebunk and Gray Village.

Mary Beth Driskell, a Duck Pond Road resident, adds her likes and dislikes of the potential redevelopment in Prides Corner to the growing list of suggestions from other area residents.