A rendering showing the entrance to Rock Row off of Main Street as envisioned. Courtesy
WESTBROOK — The City Council gave preliminary approval Monday to update Westbrook’s tax agreement with Rock Row after developers presented updated plans for the complex that includes a medical campus.
“The amended (tax deal) increases the projected financial return to the city over the term of the (30-year) agreement from $20.5 million to $142.7 million,” City Administrator Jerre Bryant said. “Additionally, the city will receive a $3.5 million up-front contribution to fund municipal capital projects.”
The $3.5 million will come to the city within the next year, Bryant said, which is already earmarked for projects like serious road work and a new fire truck.
“That will be a huge help,” Council President Gary Rairdon said.
Bryant said the change is due to the growth of the project, which began as a few stores and a Walmart to the current iteration, a 2-million-square-foot mixed-use project.
Updated plans call for a medical campus that will contain multiple services like specialty and primary care, cancer treatment, imaging, diagnostics, physical therapy and more. Rock Row officials said the company working on the medical treatment will be announced in the next few months.
“It’s a true partnership and this will continue to put Westbrook on the map as it already has,” Mayor Mike Foley said.
Developer Josh Levy hopes the medical campus will be open by spring 2023.
“It will bring in eastern and western therapies, too,” Levy said. “We’d love to add ambulatory surgery but we are working on that. We think we can make this, Westbrook, Rock Row and the medical campus a destination.”
Levy said they plan over 700 residential units phased in over the next three years. Though still in planning stages, he said the focus is empty-nesters and young people entering the workforce.
“Housing always has the concern of burdening the school system,” Levy said, but noted it “won’t be a concern” with the targeted demographic.
Levy said the goal is to build 180 residential units by this time next year and open those summer 2023.
The site will also feature two hotels.
Plans call for 300,000 square feet dedicated to restaurants and another 25,000 square feet dedicated to a brew hall, which Levy said will be curated by celebrity chef Tom Colicchio and will feature rotating local vendors.
“I am so excited to see the improvements. I’m amazed at the medical complex, the food,” Ward 2 Councilor Victor Chau said.
Still in the planning stages, a conference center will also be modeled after a venue in Alpharetta, Georgia, that has a capacity of more than 8,000 people, according to Levy.
Market Basket and the Maine Savings Pavilion have already opened in Rock Row. The Paper Store, attached to Market Basket, will open in a “week or two,” Levy said.
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