BRUNSWICK — Construction of the Cook’s Corner connector road is progressing and drivers should be able to start using the bypass sometime in mid-September, said Steve Levesque, executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority.
The majority of work will be completed by Aug. 15, Town Manager John Eldridge said Tuesday, with smaller tasks like striping and some landscaping to be done afterward.
Construction on the 1,500-foot road linking Admiral Fitch Avenue with Gurnet Road (Route 24) began in late November and has been “going well,” Levesque said. The new road will create another access point to Brunswick Landing, hopefully alleviating some of the traffic congestion in Cook’s Corner in the process.
The road will have three 11-foot wide travel lanes, a 5-foot wide bicycle lane on both sides of the road, and a 6-foot wide sidewalk with a 6-foot esplanade on either side. Street lighting is included and the road will bring utilities to some adjacent properties. There have not been any major setbacks and construction has stayed within the budget, Eldridge said.
As redevelopment efforts continue at the former Navy base, outpacing original estimates, and the number of businesses increases, so does the traffic around the Landing. Last month, the redevelopment authority reported that over 1,900 jobs had been created, with Wayfair, Pathways, SaviLinx and Molnlycke Health Care combining to employ 848 full- and part-time workers. The road has been part of the redevelopment authority’s reuse master plan from the beginning, Levesque said, and will serve as another access point to Brunswick Landing, opening access to some parcels of land that were previously landlocked and allowing for further development.
This is the primary goal of the road, Eldridge said, and there is currently only one entrance to the Landing, which Levesque has estimated will have 2,000 employees by 2020.
Town officials have been meeting with Levesque and other stakeholders in the Cooks Corner area to help coordinate development and mitigate some of the other traffic problems in the area, Eldridge said. Though the connector road is not one of the primary solutions, officials hope that some people heading toward East Brunswick, Harpswell and Route 1 will use the new entrance/exit point.
The road has not yet been named, and Eldridge said the town has received many suggestions and is currently sorting through them to find one that is both fitting and not confusing with the names of existing roads.
Bidding for the contract came in at $2.2 million, lower than the estimated $2.5 million project cost. With a $200,000 contribution from the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority and about $815,850 from the Maine Department of Transportation via a Business Partnership Initiative grant, the town is footing about $1.2 million of the cost.
hlaclaire@timesrecord.com
Copy the Story LinkSend questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.