Wells parcel primes highway authority for future interchange construction
Courtesy / Bing
The Maine Turnpike Authority purchased 29.9 acres of development land, adjacent to the turnpike in the top right quadrant of this image, to build a new interchange in Wells at some point in the future.
The Maine Turnpike Authority’s purchase of 29.9 acres in Wells is expected, eventually, to go toward improvement of the confusing traffic flow at Exit 19.
The authority purchased the development land, at 100 Spencer Drive in the Wells Industrial Park, from Leonard A. Vigant and Jane M. Vigant for $799,000. The sale closed April 10. Roxane Cole of Roxane Cole Commercial Real Estate brokered the deal.
The land is less than two-tenths of a mile from Maine Turnpike Exit 19 and the Wells Regional Transportation Center. The parcel has high visibility at the corner of Spencer Drive and Route 109 (Sanford Road) in Wells, with an annual average daily traffic count of over 24,000 vehicles. It was the only front development lot available in the park. According to Cole’s marketing material, the Route 109 corridor in Wells is undergoing commercial growth and development due to its desirable road network, which makes it a convenient location for both north-south and east-west traffic.
“I had the property listed throughout the recession,” Cole told Mainebiz. At the time, she said, there was little interest, in part because the parcel was so large and smaller parcels were still available in the park.
Interest picked up over the past few years, due to the parcel’s proximity to the turnpike, its visibility, and the park’s available infrastructure, like water and sewer, she said. But its size plus zoning restrictions continued to make it difficult to sell.
Cole approached the authority’s executive director, Peter Mills, as a logical buyer.
“It’s logical place for them,” she said. “So it’s a win-win.”
Mills was receptive.
He explained that Route 109 and the adjoining Transportation Center and park-&-ride lot are major features on the west side of the interchange.
“Route 109 is the route taken by people from Sanford when they want to travel south to Portsmouth or Boston,” he said.
On the east side of the turnpike, Route 109 leads to U.S. Route 1 and coastal towns. Immediately adjacent to the east side of the turnpike is the Wells Industrial Park. The park was started in 1981 and is now occupied in part by a Shaw’s grocery chain distribution center, UPS and Village Candle, he noted.
Exit 19 is configured in such a way that both northbound and southbound traffic gets on and off the turnpike through one access point on the west side of the highway, rather than through separate eastside access and westside access roads, he explained.
“So when you got through the tollbooth, you have to decide whether to turn right to go southbound, or go onto a bridge to get onto a cloverleaf and head north,” he said.
Traffic at Wells has steadily increased over the years, he said.
“It’s reaching a point where the logical thing to do would be to take all of the northbound traffic and get it organized on the east side of the highway, where it wants to be, and allocate the approach plaza on the west side to become exclusively southbound,” he said. “That would greatly increase the throughput of people wanting to get on and off the road.”
The parcel is ideally situated for the improvement, he said. And the timing of the purchase was excellent, he added.
“It occurred to me that, if someone built a big building on that lot, and then we had to buy it 10 years from now, we’d be paying a premium to demolish the building and build an interchange,” he said. “It might be five or 10 years before we build a new interchange, but it’s absolutely the thing to do from a traffic perspective in the long haul, and we’d rather build it on raw land.”
The improvement will help truck traffic that goes in and out of the business park as well, he said.
Mills estimated construction of a new interchange in the $15 million to $20 million range.
The Maine Turnpike consists of just over 100 miles of roadway from Kittery to Augusta.
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