The goal for the 18-unit project is to provide housing that’s financially manageable while allowing residents to save for a home while renting.
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GreenMars is continuing to expand housing options in Brunswick with the construction of an 18-unit apartment building off McKeen Street, less than a mile from Bowdoin College.
The Portland-based developer, with an in-house design and construction team, is building the two-story, 8,200-square-foot complex on the same 5-acre parcel where last fall it completed Wilbur’s Woods, a 21-unit condominium community.
Wilbur’s Woods II will offer primarily one-bedroom apartments, along with one studio, priced for residents earning between 80% and 100% of the area median income, which is $70,722.
Nine of the apartments will have their monthly rent capped at $1,663 and nine will be capped at $2,078. All utilities will be included.
The units will range in size from 322-square feet, for the studio, to 453-square-feet for the one-bedrooms. Second-story apartments will feature cathedral ceilings.
Less is more?
Across its apartment projects, GreenMars is seeing a growing desire for one-bedroom units.
Casey Kennedy, GreenMars director of operations, told Mainebiz that the smaller units are appealing to singles who prefer not to have to have a roommate in order to afford the rent.
“And there’s more of a focus on experiences that happen outside of the apartment," Kennedy said.
Principal Chris Marshall added that at GreenMars’ redevelopment of the former Nasson College campus in Sanford, where the company built 84 apartments, the one-bedroom apartments are leasing faster than the two-bedroom units.
Smaller units are also less expensive and more efficient to build, Marshall notes, as construction costs, for both materials and labor — especially labor — have escalated.
Across its apartment projects, GreenMars is seeing a growing desire for one-bedroom units, which are priced to be "accessible," a goal for all of the company's housing projects.
The goal for the Brunswick project, Marshall said, is to help provide housing that’s financially manageable while allowing residents to save for a home while renting.
The anticipated completion date for Wilbur’s Woods II is December.
