Biddeford has been awarded a $1.2 million federal grant for road improvements around a 650-space city parking garage and adjacent private redevelopment in the mill district.
The funding is part of a U.S. Economic Development Administration effort to support work that is expected to lead to 645 jobs and generate $170 million in private investment, a news release said Friday.
The city broke ground on the garage at 3 Lincoln St. in August. The garage is on the former Maine Energy Recovery Corp. site that will be developed into a 300,000-square-foot mixed-use complex planned by developers Jim Brady and Brian Eng, and is adjacent to 240,000-square-foot Lincoln Mill, being redeveloped by Tim Harrington and Chinburg Properties.
The money will pay to reconstruct Pearl Street from its intersection with Lincoln Street to the Saco River and Biddeford Riverwalk, increasing access to retail and dining options in the redeveloped Biddeford Mill District.
The Lincoln Mill redevelopment and Brady and Eng’s planned Pearl Street District are among four development projects that are recently completed, underway or planned in the area of the $22 million five-story garage, expected to be completed in July. Other projects are Tom Watson & Co.’s Riverdam Mill development at 24 and 28 Pearl St., and former mill buildings at 59 Elm and 10 Gooch streets, also by Watson, who owns Portland’s Port Properties Management, and his partners.
The surge of development at the northeast end of the mill district comes after the city bought the nine-acre MERC property in 2012 for $6.75 million after the waste incinerator, owned by Casella, closed. The parking garage is being built on the property, with Brady and Eng’s Pearl Street project built around it. The Lincoln Street Mill and Watson projects surround the former MERC site.
When the city broke ground on the garage in August, Mayor Alan Casavant said it was a critical piece in the redevelopment and reemergence of Biddeford as a desirable community. “It shatters the old stereotype of the city being nothing more than a dying mill town, it provides the needed parking spaces to be a catalyst for future development within the district, and it is a symbol of pride in who we are as a people,” Casavant said.
Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, in announcing the grant, said the money is part of President Joe Biden’s effort to “help communities grow their critical business clusters to ensure that they not only recover from the coronavirus pandemic but build back stronger,” supporting economic development and creating job opportunities. The EDA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce that makes investments in economically distressed communities.
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