BRUNSWICK — A 108-unit apartment complex proposed to be built at Brunswick Landing is due to go before the Planning Board Tuesday, May 26.
The Apartments at Brunswick Landing units would be housed in nine, three-story apartments at 9 and 10 Captains Way, a cul-de-sac off Admiral Fitch Drive, according to Chris Rhoades of Shipyard Ventures, which is applying to the town for sketch plan major development review. The project will ultimately have to return to the Planning Board for final review, and also requires approval from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The Brunswick Planning Board on May 26 is due to review the proposed construction of nine apartment buildings at Brunswick Landing. A building could look similar to this one, which Graiver Housing built in Cumberland and would construct in Brunswick, too.
Two homes on the lots will be demolished. They were among about units for 650 family and 180 bachelor enlisted personnel that were part of base housing for Brunswick Naval Air Station and its Topsham Annex, according to Steve Levesque, executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority. The base closed in 2011 and has been redeveloped as Brunswick Landing.
About 250 of the family units have been renovated and made into single-family houses and condominiums, and the bachelor units were renovated and made into apartments, Levesque said.
Upon project approval, Shipyard Ventures plans to sell the Captains Way lots – 5.68 acres together – to Graiver Homes, which will build the apartments. The project also includes a club house and 172 parking spaces.
Rhoades called the new rental properties “a good thing for the community, for more housing and all the job growth with Wayfair,” a company with about 500 workers at a Brunswick Landing call center.
Wayfair — an e-commerce furniture and homegoods company — pays about $30,000 a year for a call service representative, and about $54,000 for a customer service manager, according to jobs website indeed.com.
Rents for the one-to-two-bedroom units could run between $1,300 and $1,550, and include heat, water and sewer. Amenities will include walking trails, a dog park and a community center with a gym, Graiver said.
John Hodge, executive director of the Brunswick and Topsham housing authorities, characterized the price point as market rate.
“All housing that’s added to the inventory is good housing,” Hodge said. “Even if it’s market rate, higher-end housing, it does free up other units that might otherwise not be rentable to people we serve.”
Matt Panfil, Brunswick’s director of planning and development, said he has “anecdotal evidence and comments from the public at our public meetings that more rentals and other types of housing are desirable at various price points, but I do not have any official data yet. The Comprehensive Plan Committee had just gotten into the housing discussion when we were delayed by COVID-19.”
He said he anticipates having data in the near future that compares Brunswick’s rental data with the rest of Cumberland County.
The median family income for a family of four in Brunswick is $78,100; for a family of one, it’s $54,700, according to huduser.gov. According to that website’s Fair Market Rent Documentation System, an efficiency apartment is $776, a one-bedroom unit is $815, and a two-bedroom unit is $1,051.
Loni Graiver of Graiver Homes, who declined to disclose the project cost or property purchase price, said he hopes for final Planning Board approval in July, infrastructure work to begin in August and framing in September.
“Our best-case scenario would be renting in January or February of the first units,” he said.
Graiver acknowledged that the coronavirus pandemic could slow down elements of the project, such as unexpected supply chain issues.
“We have to be careful as far as how many people are on the site, at the same time keeping the distance,” he said. “Keeping everybody safe is priority one.”
He has developed 96 units in Cumberland and 72 in Westbook, and is beginning to build the first of what he hopes will be 85 single-family homes, starting at $250,000, at Brunswick Landing, too. The first eight units are being built on Admiral Fitch and Forrestal drives.
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