Members of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority on Tuesday were happy to find themselves discussing the merits of a connector road from Brunswick Landing to Gurnet Road to help alleviate traffic congestion.

Brunswick Town Manager John Eldridge updated the MRRA board on a number of ongoing projects in Brunswick. Among them, he said the town is looking at a possible road connection between Gurnet Road and Admiral Fitch Avenue, as a result of the success at Brunswick Landing creating extra traffic.

Eldridge said the town has sent out a request for proposals to gather preliminary information, including a traffic analysis and a concept design for the road.

The proposed road alignment would run somewhere between the intersection of Perryman Drive, behind the Cook’s Corner Mall, and connect with Admiral Fitch Avenue.

MRRA will be a key partner in this project, which hopefully will occur next summer, Eldridge said. The town is still looking at how to fund the road.

The connecting road was envisioned in the base reuse master plan, “but we never envisioned that we would need it this quickly, so that’s great the town is really stepping up and doing that work with the property owners,” said Steve Levesque, executive director of MRRA.

Board member John Moncure said the traffic at Cook’s Corner is backed up in the morning worse than when the Navy base was still open. The new road will alleviate a lot of traffic congestion, he said.

“That’s what’s known as a healthy problem,” Levesque said. Following the base closure, “We’re sitting here just five years down the road and now we’re having traffic problems. But we’re dealing with it.”

On that note, he said the back gate to Brunswick Landing will stay open this winter.

Levesque reported that the Navy has transferred approximately 1,761 acres to MRRA of the 2,100 acres it is slated to receive.

TechPlace at Brunswick Landing is now 94,000 square feet following a major expansion project. Levesque said there are 30 entities located in the business incubator and nearly 100 jobs only 17 months into the project.

“It’s been a very exciting project so far,” he said, and there is still interest in additional manufacturing space.

As to overall redevelopment efforts, MRRA is approaching 100 entities at Brunswick Landing and 21 property owners. MRRA has 32 direct tenants it works with and more than 1,200 people working on the property. It has sold more than 370 acres and 40 buildings to the private sector.

“We are two and a half times over our projections of where we thought we would be based on absorption rates and the business activities that were going on,” Levesque said.

One new businesses that will open at 89 Admiral Fitch Ave. described its venture to MRRA on Tuesday.

Gary Currier, the executive director of Avita of Brunswick, said he anticipates the 60-apartment memory care facility will open on Dec. 12. A team of seven department heads has already been hired, he said.

“As we grow there, we’re expecting that we will have probably 50 to 60 employees by the time we’re at full capacity,” Currier said. “It’s going to be a really nice addition to Brunswick. This will be a beautiful facility that people will really be proud of.”

dmoore@timesrecord.com