The developers of a proposed 9,100-square-foot Dollar General store in a meadow along Route 302 have returned to the drawing board, following concerns that the proposed building design would spread North Windham-style development south along the artery.

Following an informal rejection of the design at the June 8 Windham Planning Board meeting, Dollar General’s contracted engineering firm, Scarborough-based Northeast Civil Solutions, plans to submit a new design before the June 22 re-submittal deadline.

“They were fair concerns and it’s something we’re working on addressing,” said Lee Allen, vice president of engineering for the Scarborough firm. “We’ve explained what the concerns were from the town with the architect, and they’re working on a revised plan for the building.”

The 1.72-acre property, formerly occupied by a gas station during the 1960s and a water park in the 1990s, is located at 361 Roosevelt Trail, near Windham Automotive and south of the rotary that meets Route 202. John and Vicki Mann own the property.

On April 13, the Planning Board ruled a sketch plan for the project complete. But at the board’s June 8 public hearing, board members determined that the proposal was inconsistent with the town’s building design standards, which require New England-style architecture, according to Vice Chairman Jim Hanscom.

“Where it stands right now is if the guy comes back with that design it will not be approved,” Hanscom said. “The Planning Board will vote no – that’s what I gathered the last time. It does not meet our guidelines. I specifically asked the guy to show me one piece of New England architecture on that building and he couldn’t do it.”

“It’s a typical family dollar for the Midwest as far as we’re concerned, as far as I’m concerned,” Hanscom added. “It does not fit the environment of Windham.”

Linda Griffin, who is married to Hanscom and is the president of the Windham Historical Society, also criticized the design at the meeting, suggesting the dollar store should feature sloped roofs, dormers and cupolas.

“This one looked like it should be in Texas or Wyoming,” she said. “It’s a huge rectangle, flat-roof and a bump-up section in the middle with their name on it. To me it looked like the Alamo. It’s an ugly building and they can give it some character because it’s in a field right now and it will set the standard for the other buildings that will come later.”

Griffin also suggested the proposed Dollar General would not match the nearby buildings.

“Windham Automotive [is] an attractive building with sloped roofs and lots of flowers all around,” she said. “Even the old Hancock Lumber building, now Mercy Quick Care, has gable-ended sloped roofs and cupolas. Hall Implement buildings look like barns because they were barns, and their grounds look like a park with all the careful mowing and flowers everywhere.”

According to Hanscom, Windham’s design standards were implemented about five years ago. Hanscom said Windham should look to Brunswick – not North Windham – as an appropriate development model.

“Our take is that you go into Brunswick and you go by a Walmart, you can’t tell it’s a Walmart,” he said. “If they took all the signs off their buildings you wouldn’t know if it’s a Walmart, a theater, a Burger King, or whatever. You wouldn’t know it because of the architecture.”

Griffin said she is not opposed to dollar stores – just ugly ones.

“Every town I go to they say we don’t want to look like North Windham,” Griffin said. “‘We don’t want our commercial area to look as ugly as North Windham.’ At the Planning Board meeting, (board member) Margaret Pinchbeck said the same thing. We don’t want this section to look like North Windham. There weren’t standards when a lot of those buildings were built.”

The Windham Planning Board has informally rejected this design of a proposed 9,100-square-foot Dollar General sited on a meadow at 361 Roosevelt Trail.  Photo courtesy of Northeast Civil Solutions