Hedging on Haigis

Haigis Parkway Aerial.JPG

An aerial view of Scarborough’s Haigis Parkway, showing the boundaries of its 330-acre zoning district. Courtesy image.

With development falling short of expectations, Scarborough looks to relax zoning rules along the parkway.

As local property broker Tom Dunham, far right, looks on
at a meeting Jan. 25, Barry Feldman, owner of The Gateway
Shoppes at Scarborough, where Cabela’s is located, makes
a point in support of allowing larger retail shops in the
Haigis Parkway zoning district.

SCARBOROUGH — In 1995, when Scarborough finished a road named in honor Dr. Philip “Doc” Haigis that cut through the center of town, from Doc’s Route 1 office to the new Maine Turnpike exit on Payne Road, town planners had high hopes. Conventional wisdom held that bypassing the old seasonal exit to Scarborough Downs in favor of a “gateway” leading from I-95 straight to the Scarborough Industrial Park was, in short, a masterstroke.

A few years later, that promise unfulfilled, the town decided it could kick-start development with a $10 million utility upgrade. Scarborough had been a rapidly growing town, both residentially and commercially, and it felt like a good bet that there were Fortune 500 companies eager to settle on Scarborough’s magic mile (actually, 1.45 miles). As proof, a September 2001 study predicted that within 20 years, the 308-acre Haigis Parkway Economic Development Zone would be home to 29 businesses employing 2,600 people in 1.1 million square feet of building space.

So, in 2004 they brought in the utilities, and they weathered a couple of lawsuits from property owners, who felt over-assessed by the town’s attempt to pay for the build-out. Still, nothing happened. Then, the recession hit.

Now, Scarborough has decided a change in tack is in order. At a special meeting Jan. 25 called with the 15 landowners within the Haigis Parkway zoning district, members of the town’s Long-Range Planning Committee announced their intent to relax rules on allowable development. Gone was the vision of so-called “campus-style” construction, limited to professional offices, convention centers, hotels and high-tech industry. In its place: health clubs, entertainment centers, multi-family housing, assisted-living facilities and, in the section between Payne Road and the turnpike, gas stations and large-scale retail stores.

That, said Linwood Higgins, who owns 74 acres at the Route 1 end of Haigis Parkway, is exactly what was needed all along.

“It was nice at the time for us to have all of these grand ideas,” he said. “I think we all envisioned that the world was going to continue building these mega-buildings and someday Apple and Google would have their corporate headquarters here on Haigis Parkway.

“It’s pretty clear that’s not going to happen,” said Higgins. “We thought we were going to have this thing full in five to 10 years, but we’ve got to realize it’s not going to happen right off quickly. We’ve got to set realistic guidelines for development in this area given the current economic condition.

“We can’t continue to have this area zoned for a home run,” said Higgins.

Indeed, to continue Higgins’ baseball analogy, Scarborough has decided that instead of waiting for an economic grand slam, it’ll aim instead for a ground-rule double.

“Given 10-plus years’ experience of nothing happening, we’re asking ourselves if that vision we had for this area is still worth waiting for,” Town Manager Tom Hall said last week. “Is it still viable? It’s important for us to look at what’s relevant zoning. The long-range planning committee did that and it sparked a really interesting and important discussion.

“We now appreciate that there probably needs to be some broadening of usages,” said Hall.

But not everyone is eager to see Scarborough open up standards, just to get hammers swinging.

“I would recommend that the current conditions for the economy are not going to last forever,” said Laurie Warchol, business development officer at Biddeford Savings Bank. “I think the committee should move with a very slight hand in regards to the [Haigis Parkway] zone, because I think it really could be a gem.

“We’re on Route 1 in Scarborough and we’ve been waiting since we moved in for Haigis Parkway to develop, simply because it will bring more traffic in our direction,” Warchol said after the meeting. “But we also don’t want to just see golden arches and gas stations. We want to see quality business move in there, with really good-paying jobs. That’s what we want to see for traffic.”

“The problem is that that are so many wetlands, and so many small parcels of land, that area’s never been zoned properly, in my opinion,” said Cynthia Milliken Taylor, owner of Scarborough Grounds and president of Housing Initiatives of New England.

“This conversation represents an opportunity to do it right,” she said. “If we’re going to do rezoning, bring the buildings together and make it someplace where people really do want to live and work and play.”

That was the vision championed by Barry Feldman, owner of The Gateway Shoppes at Scarborough, which houses Cabela’s and the Gateway Square office campus across Payne Road which, to date, exists on paper only.

“We think the economy is starting to rebound,” said Feldman. “In an attempt to get the engine started again, I think it’s incumbent upon municipalities like Scarborough to take the positive steps and actions necessary to promote and enhance development.”

Feldman “highly commended and endorsed” the Haigis rezoning proposals, particularly the possibility of allowing larger, 40,000-square-foot retail stores in the area between Payne Road and the Interstate, when shops are not limited to a “very restrictive” 20,000 square feet.

Feldman also praised the idea of opening the Haigis area to multi-family residential development.

“That’s the wave of the future of development in this country,” he said. “I know our company seeks to do developments wherever we can where we can mix retail, office, commercial and residential in one location. It adds a vibrancy to the development, it creates a 24-hour presence, and people have shown they like to live where they work.”

However, Feldman, like Higgins, would prefer to be out of the Haigis Parkway zone altogether, with his property appended to an abutting business district zone, in order to free development possibilities even further.

Meanwhile, Mike Scammon actually wants more of his land in the Haigis Parkway zone.  Scammon owns the property in the middle of the parkway, where gravel pits excavated to build the highway in the late 1940s and early 1950s have been filled by aquifers to create natural spring-water ponds. 

Scammon said he’s had interest in using his 52-acre lot as a training facility for outdoor recreation, but because the lot is only half in the parkway zone, with the other half in a residential zone, the site as a whole is “not marketable.”

“It makes it a really expensive parcel to develop,” he said.

Also concerned are the few homeowners who live in or near the parkway zone, especially the Payne Road properties near Cabela’s.

“What’s going to happen to us?” asked Ralph Trempe. “They’re building all around us and we’re just sitting there? Maybe you’re thinking they’re going to kick eventually and we won’t have to worry about it.”

Whether that’s anyone’s plan, Trempe didn’t get an answer, and the conversation quickly steered toward the need to act quickly.

As developers and landowners ticked off lost possibilities///////////ANY SPECIFICS?////// in recent years – such as companies who had shown interest in Haigis Parkway only to learn their business would not be allowed – Tom Dunham, of NAI The Dunham Group, revealed he had a fish on the line.

It is, he said, an “indoor amusement use,” although he declined to name the company, or the type of amusement involved.

“I would suggest the town absorb what was said today and enact it quickly, because this thing could turn around,” he said. “It could flip tomorrow. If you want to expand your tax base, the time is now – not three months, or six months. We have a window here, and it could close very quickly.”

The Long-Range Planning Committee will meet at 8 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 3, to digest the comments made. However, they warned Dunham, the process by which changes will wind through committee, then to the Planning Board and the Town Council, is just that – a process. It will take time, Dunham’s exhortations to lost opportunity notwithstanding.

And, Hall said, the town is not willing to toss away its vision for Haigis entirely, even if it is willing to tinker at the edges.

“This exercise is something we need to constantly do to test our vision against reality,” he said. “You can have the most utopian vision in the world, but if it doesn’t work against the reality of the market, and what’s practical, what good is it?

“Our overarching goal is to expand uses without harming the vision of quality development with good-paying jobs,” said Hall. “After all, this area is the heart of our community and it would be tragic if it did not develop properly.”

A CLOSER LOOK

Proposed changes to the Haigis Parkway zoning district, which covers 10 million square feet of land, from Exit 42 on the Maine Turnpike to Route 1.

“Major changes”

• Allow gas stations between Payne Road and the Maine Turnpike.

• Allow multi-family housing as part of a “mixed-use” project.

“Moderate changes”

• Allow assisted living/nursing/elder care facilities.

• Allow places of assembly, amusement, recreation and culture.

• Allow retail shops larger than 20,000 square feet between Payne Road and the Maine Turnpike.

“Minor changes”

• Allow medical and diagnostic facilities.

• Allow health clubs and other personal services.

• Allow places of worship.

• Eliminate the Exit 42 economic development overlay zone.

• Amend district boundary to include the entire 52-acre Scammon property.