Willard subdivision could bring new café

SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland Planning Board has approved subdivision of a lot at 96/98 Willow St. that could bring a new café to the Willard Square neighborhood.

Mark Foley and Lisa Foster, of UK firm Dagmar Developments LLC, met with the Planning Board in a workshop session June 26 and presented sketch plans for a multi-use building at the corner of Willow and Preble streets, to include two apartments on the second story and a restaurant on the ground floor. According to Community Planner Steve Puleo, no plans for development were left with the city following that meeting.

However, on July 24 the Planning Board unanimously approved a subdivision request that splits off a 6,726-square-foot lot that could enable the next step in the project.

“There is not actual development proposal in front of the board at this point,” said City Planner Tex Haeuser. “The board saw elevations showing a kind of building with a mix of contemporary and traditional looks, but we have really no idea if that’s what will be coming forward, or if anything will come forward.

“This just creates the lot line and allows the lot to be sold if the owner wishes to do so,” said Haeuser.

Foley and Foster acquired the home and its 0.39-acre lot from Foster’s grandmother, who died in 2001. In 2004, the couple began looking into possibilities for the site. Those plans were sidelined by area rezoning work in 2006 and then by the recession in 2008, but by 2010 the couple had sold off a 3,500-square-foot lot and relocated the 1790s-era building on the remaining parcel. At that time, Foley and Foster got a special waiver from the City Council to have a curb cut for the reconfigured lot less than 200 feet from the Willow/Preble intersection. Puleo said Monday that the previously approved curb cut “travels with the land” and will be allowed for any new development following the lot split.

Haeuser said that because the July 24 action was the third lot split in five years, it required subdivision review. That meant a public hearing, and the first to comment was Pillsbury Street resident Glenn Perry.

“I look forward to seeing what they can do for a great looking building,” said Perry. “But I’ll be frank. My concern is that on Willow Street, being only 22-feet wide, there’s already a parking area for the apartment building there and, if you come in only 20 feet from Preble Street, it makes for a very narrow space.

“If you had a cafe that was busy and successful there, which one certainly would hope it would be, it would create problems with traffic there.”

Perry knows something about trying to develop property in Willard Square. Although the Dagmar property is just outside the Willard Village-Commercial zone, Perry’s property is in the center and, last year, was in the center of controversy when he proposed an “upscale eatery” at the corner of Pillsbury and Preble streets, one block from the Dagmar project.

Perry eventually pulled the project when neighborhood furor regarding his plans cost him his funding source. Plans were announced to take the eatery to Knightville instead, but the store never materialized.

However, Perry was not the only person to question the Dagmar deal. Preble Street resident Lisa Van Oosterum also questioned the project, but Haeuser repeated that nothing was known of the plans for the project and, at any rate, those plans must necessarily “have no impact on the decision to allow a subdivision.”

“I think more interesting questions might arise when we have a site plan, but for right now it seems pretty reasonable to allow them to create that third lot,” said Planning Board member Caroline Hendry.

Foley, a London architect, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Dan Riley, of South Portland engineering firm Sebago Technics, which is representing Dagmar, also could not be reached.

Devon Gray, secretary/treasurer of the Willard Neighborhood Association, said Tuesday that, contrary to popular belief, her group did not oppose Perry’s project, although she acknowledges some neighborhood residents were certainly against it. The association is similarly unlikely to weigh in on any potential Dagmar development, she said.

“The neighborhood assocation doesn’t take a stand on issues like that unless it’s a total consensus,” she said.