Auburn puts 7 city properties on the market to spark development
Courtesy / City of Auburn
The St. Louis Church building at 32 Dunn St. in the New Auburn neighborhood of Auburn is one of seven city-owned properties listed for sale.
The city of Auburn has put seven city-owned properties up for sale, in the latest step of an aggressive new economic development strategy.
The property — six lots and a historic church — are downtown, in the New Auburn area and a nearby corridor. Both are spots the city said are "highly desirable" to developers.
The move comes after Auburn officials in November announced a new focus on economic development and restructured its city economic development department. In January, Mayor Jason Levesque also invited developers to build 2,000 market-rate homes in the city.
Levesque and other officials hope to send a message to developers that Auburn is ready to grow, a news release about the property listings this week said.
“There are countless reasons why Auburn is the perfect destination for developers,” Levesque said in the release. “Our quality of life here, combined with our streamlined permitting and form-based zoning make this city very appealing. When you also consider that Auburn has set aside $1 million dollars to incentivize investments downtown and the fact that our team is easy to do business with, it becomes crystal clear that Auburn is the place to be.”
The property is listed by Boulos Co., of Portland, and developers who are interested should contact Jay Brenchick, the city Director of Economic Development, the listings say.
The property for sale includes:
- A 0.43-acre lot on Mechanics Row, downtown;
- A 0.74-acre developable parking lot at 131 Main St;
- A 6,800-square-foot site at 186 Main St., on the banks of the Androscoggin River.
- A 0.22-acre lot at 261 Main St.;
- A 1.11-acre lot at 15 Academy St.;
- An 8,000-square-foot pad site at Anniversary Park;
- The 9,742-square-foot 100-year-old St. Louis Church building on 0.56 acres at 32 Dunn St. in the New Auburn neighborhood.
'Unprecedented growth' in Auburn
The city, as part of its new strategy, has stressed that it wants to make development as easy for developers as possible. The city department restructuring came as the city experienced "unprecedented growth," City Manager Phil Crowell said in November. In January, Levesque said there was 1 million square feet of development underway in the city.
“Permit approval happens in a fraction of the time it takes elsewhere,” Brenchick said in the release. “And our downtown form based code districts offer developers more creativity and the opportunity to realize greater returns on their investment.”
The new economic development structure includes a "one-stop coordinated development process," from initial discussions, to site location assistance, incentives to overcome hurdles and local and state-delegated permit reviews, the city said in November. The downtown form-based code districts and preapproved industrial and commercial subdivision lots are "eligible for quick staff level site development approvals for most uses," Levesque said at the time.
The new economic development structure unveiled in November is designed to streamline project development, and came with a new motto: "Auburn, Maine, where your next opportunity is closer than you think."
Besides Brenchick, the restructured department includes Director of Planning and Permitting Eric Cousens, who was most recently deputy director of economic and community development and Glen Holmes, director of business and community development.
The city of 23,200 is across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, and was listed seventh in the state's "hottest towns" for single-family home transactions in 2020, according to Maine Life Real Estate, which crunches the numbers every year. The city had a 16.6% increase in its home sales over 2019, with a median price of $198,500.
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