BIDDEFORD — The much-anticipated Lofts at Saco Falls residential project officially opened Friday, marking the completion of Biddeford’s largest-ever mill redevelopment project as the city continues to undergo a downtown renaissance.

The $14 million project features 80 one- and two-bedroom apartments in a renovated complex of two buildings constructed in 1842 and 1867.

Fourteen of those apartments are market-rate, and the remaining 66 are income-restricted, meaning they rent for prices lower than market rate based on one’s income.

Nathan Szanton, president of The Szanton Company, a managing partner of the development, said Friday he believes the renovated mill building and its neighboring facilities could be an anchor of the city’s mill district by offering affordable and market-rate housing, office space, retail space and light industrial space.

“I think there’s room in the mill district for all of that, and we’re seeing that today in the Pepperell Mill Complex,” Szanton said. “We’re here doing some workforce housing, with market-rate scattered into it. There’s room for a wide variety of stuff.”

As of Friday, more than 70 of the apartments had been leased since Sept. 3, and will house people from a variety of professions, including teachers, artists, nurses and nurse assistants, a musician and an insurance broker, Szanton said.

Market-rate units range from $875 to $1,100, and income-restricted apartments may run $200 to $300 less than that, the company said in a prepared statement.

Szanton said Friday that two-thirds of the project’s funding came from federal sources: the Affordable, or Low-Income, Housing Tax Credit from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Historic Investment Tax Incentives from the National Park Service.

Szanton also said 82 percent of those renting in the development are from outside Biddeford, which city officials are hoping will draw even more people to the area to bring money into the local economy.

Construction of the project generated a $12.8 million one-time benefit to the city, and each unit rented will generate an additional $40,000 to the community through direct, indirect or induced economic benefits, said Biddeford Mayor Alan Casavant,

“If you’re older like me, you kind of remember the downtown as something that was vibrant, something that was interesting, something that was a driver, something the people of Biddeford could take pride in. And when the 1980s recession hit, that went away,” Casavant said in a speech.

Casavant said the only way to restore the city’s downtown would be to drive economic development, primarily housing, to stimulate the local economy.

“The vision of City Hall, the staff, the City Council is this: that if you put affordable housing in the downtown and you create the foot traffic in the downtown, you’re going to see a blossoming,” he said.

John Gallagher, director of the Maine State Housing Authority, or MaineHousing, which helped finance the project, said the development will help quell rising housing costs in the southern part of the state.

“The housing need in southern Maine and York County and southern Cumberland County is enormous,” Gallagher said. “So having these buildings used as that offers a real opportunity to kind of help put a small dent in that.”

U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, also attended the opening, and applauded the developers’ efforts to move the city forward while preserving the historic character of the downtown.

“This is such a wonderful celebration of the mystic chords of memory that bind us to the people who came here 150, 200 years ago. And to see these buildings vital and vibrant again and full of people,” King said.

King echoed Casavant’s and Gallagher’s collective stance that southern Maine suffers from a lack of affordable housing, and that for the city and southern Maine to grow, more housing needs to become available.

“It’s a real problem for us, for young people, for families and for seniors to find affordable housing,” King said. “The only solution to the affordable housing problem is more supply. It goes to the heart of one of the constraints we have on the growth and vitality of this region.”

King lauded the developers’ efforts, saying the lofts, which can accommodate 140 people, will be an engine of change for the city and region.

“These mills have gone through tenants and businesses and have seen the history of Biddeford, and now here we are with people living here, new vitality, people walking here downtown. That’s change,” King said.

King admitted that change is hard, especially when everyone seems to want development without change. He said the time is now to think outside the box and get creative with revitalization efforts, something he credited the developers of the Lofts with being able to do.

“‘We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country,’” King said, quoting Abraham Lincoln. “Think differently, think creatively about people living in a mill building. Think creatively about how we can revitalize our communities and share this wonderful lifestyle of this state.”

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or [email protected].