WARD 5 COUNCIL UPDATES

August-September, 2025

Greetings from the presumptive Ward 5 representative to City Council! I've been going to every Council meeting for the better part of a year. I am looking forward to... still doing that.

I have just added a "Resources" page on this website: https://davidkurtzforbiddeford.me/resources.

Please do email me with any suggestions you have. One of my priorities in Council is to make it easier to get information about how the city works and what the city offers people. My email address is davidkurtz@davidkurtzforbiddeford.me.

THIS UPDATE

Council has been discussing several new housing and infrastructure developments in Ward 5. Some of these have been in the hopper for years. Here are my summaries of what's under development - as best as I understand it.

Related: Heart Of Biddeford director Delilah Poupore recently suggested to the Council that Biddeford make one single web page to keep track of all its ongoing projects, and then update that web site regularly to reflect progress and changes. Can't begin to tell you how much I would like this.

- BIDDEFORD-SACO MULTIMODAL BRIDGE

The City is considering a pedestrian bridge from Upper Falls Road (formerly Gooch Street), over the river, and connecting to Factory Island Saco. I think of it as the "Amtrak-Levee Bridge."

The full Council packet can be found here: https://biddefordme.portal.civicclerk.com/event/205/files/attachment/3993

The design will be completed by the end of the year. Then Council will vote on it. If it passes, the Cities will work together to get funding for the bridge. If everything goes quick and easy, it would be built in 2027.

I spoke at Council strongly in favor of a pedestrian bridge being built here. (You can see this by going to https://biddefordme.portal.civicclerk.com/event/205/media, the timestamp is 1:37:20.)

In full disclosure, my house at the Levee is basically right at the foot of this bridge. I think this means that any benefits and any drawbacks would affect me very directly. For myself, I consider it all benefit, no drawback - and the benefits are HUGE. Like, it will almost certainly benefit my property values. It will definitely benefit my day-to-day, because now I can walk to the Transportation Center in two minutes rather than twenty. So take my personal recommendations with a grain of salt!

However, I do think the bridge would be great for the community as a whole. Easier foot access from the city to the Transportation Center is great. It'll be helpful to residents, especially those on Springs Island and up on the northern edge of the city. It'll help direct visitors to the shops in the Mills and downtown. It might well lead to more use of the city parking garage. And it would help keep some pedestrians away from cars, which is just generally great for both.

The original plan was to pursue federal funding for the construction. In the current political climate, this seems highly unlikely to little old me. So I would say that "cautious optimism" is fine, but like, "cautious pessimism" might be more appropriate. Sorry about that.

If funding becomes a problem, I recommended the formation of a cross-river Citizens Committee to fundraise from institutions and private donors. (Hell, I'd chip in!)

- THE PEARL STREET DEVELOPMENTS ("FATHOM" and "WDC").

The Pearl Street Parking Garage is likely going to be flanked on either side by new residential housing.

If I understand correctly, the west side of the garage (bordering Lincoln Street) is assigned to Fathom development company. The east side of the garage (where the MERC plant used to be) is assigned to the Westbrook Development Corporation (WDC). As of this time, both projects have been greenlit by the council.

Fathom's page for their project is here: https://www.fathomcompanies.com/developments/385-congress-street-pearl. I know that Fathom has requested Planning Board approval for modifications to their original design. I gather that they are in the process of doing so again. As such, the exact contours of this project are a bit up in the air. My understanding is that it will be predominately market-rate housing, including owning and renting opportunities, with even a few townhomes (although these might be getting the axe). They are also planning on some first-level commercial spaces, including a small grocery. (What I wouldn't give for a place I can walk to in my slippers to buy milk for my cereal oml.)

WDC put together a pitch deck for the Council a few months ago. Randy Seaver of the Biddeford Gazette summarized the project as "[...]approximately 90 units of affordable housing for residents over the age of 55. The developers say the monthly rent would range between $1,100 and $1,300, including all utilities." That is taken from his article here https://biddeford-gazette.com/2025/06/04/council-pauses-on-major-development-project/

However, there is one interstitial step at least for the WDC project. Because the project is below-market-rate ("affordable") senior housing, it can only be built with support from the State. And by support I, of course, mean MONEY.

This is a competitive process. Each such project in Maine is "scored" based on a published rubric. Tyler Norod from WDC explained the rubric in great detail to Council a few months ago. The scores of each project are then measured against each other, with the best-scoring projects getting the funding for that year. As such, if we want the project to get funded, we want the project to get the highest score possible. This means going through the rubric, line by line, and trying to pitch the project in the strongest possible way.

By the same token, if you oppose the project, you could try to sabotage it by keeping it from scoring well.

Councilor-at-Large Marc Lessard seems to have made this his particular mission in the last few Council meetings. Marc did his best to keep the Council from approving the project in the first place. When they did, Marc then did his best to keep the project scoring well in the funding competition. He has also attempted to use procedural delays to postpone the project.

As of last night, the matter came to two votes (one procedural, one substantive). Councilor Lessard was universally opposed on both votes. As such, the project will proceed to scoring with maximal support of the City.

- THE RIVERWALK EXTENSION

It has been proposed that another length of Riverwalk will extend from Laconia Plaza to Pearl Street Park. (That is to say, from Pepperell North Dam to the MERC smokestack.)

I have no idea what's going on with this project. I will request an update.

- THE MERC TOWER

The Portland Press Herald recently ran a story about a local resident who wants the former MERC smokestack to be demolished. The article can be found here: https://www.pressherald.com/2025/07/31/biddeford-faces-a-smokestack-dilemma-as-it-moves-past-its-trash-town-usa-rep/

My understanding is as follows:

- The City is not seriously considering removal of this tower. I'm not entirely sure what the impetus behind this publicity was, but I don't believe it's something under active consideration at this time.

- As the person quoted in the article admitted, "Unfortunately, I think the opportunity to [demolish the smokestack] may have been missed."

- The City has spent considerable time and money to design a park that will go around the tower, with construction efforts already underway. The removal of the tower would require all these efforts to be scrapped and begun from scratch, with attendant expense.

- WDC's housing development will be occurring right next to the tower, which will presumably make a massive demolition and cleanup effort much more complicated.

- Lots of local residents currently use that park, especially for dog-walking and moving to/from the Levee. Any destruction of the Tower would be a significant if temporary inconvenience.

- Removal of the tower would cost around two million dollars. This is a not-inconsiderable percentage of the city budget.

- The tower houses the cell phone equipment which services the area. So any changes would be detrimental to local cell reception. At the very least, it would require finding new solutions to what is not otherwise a problem - with time and expense in tandem.

- The city currently accrues $130,000 per year in revenue from housing the cell phone equipment on the tower. This is not a major part of the city budget, but it's nontrivial.

- Many local residents have expressed a strong enjoyment of the tower - as a local landmark, as an element of our complex skyline, and as a reminder of a certain period in Biddeford's history. It might not be the most memorable period in our history. But it is our history nevertheless.

- The tower is often celebrated in Biddeford merchandise, much like the Crook Point Bascule is in Providence. If we take the Tower down, the local hipsters will need to re-design a lot of stickers and t-shirts!

- And finally, and perhaps I'm burying the lede here: There are endangered birds which nest on the tower, and so we cannot legally remove it even if we wanted to.

As a result: I confess I rather expect that Biddo-dûr is here to stay.