BRUNSWICK
The Brunswick Development Corporation ( BDC), which owns property earmarked for a new Brunswick police station at the corner of Pleasant and Stanwood streets, last week committed to transfer that property to the town at a later date.
A Nov. 30 letter from BDC president Larissa Darcy states that a land transfer would be made “ once the police station has been approved.”
Darcy added that “the BDC intentions are limited to providing these properties to the town of Brunswick for the police station project.”
Terms of a transfer have not been negotiated, Darcy wrote, but Town Manager Gary Brown said at an Oct. 3 Town Council meeting that there has been public discussion about exchanging those properties for the current town office building and police station at 28 Federal St.
In early October, town councilors approved a similar swap with Bowdoin College, trading the town- owned Longfellow School for the college’s downtown McLellan Building. Brown said the town will not look to move its offices there until late 2014.
Should plans for the police station gain approval and the land swap take place, the town would be set to move its offices to McLellan, its police station to the Pleasant and Stanwood location, and put its Federal Street office into the hands of the BDC.
At the council’s Oct. 3 meeting, District 3 Councilor Suzan Wilson, who serves on the BDC, said discussion of possible uses for the property have included “ uses that (Brunswick’s) creative economy people and artistic economy people and those interested in the revitalization of that part of the old downtown will be very interested in.”
Still, Wilson said plans for future use of the 28 Federal St. property remain speculative and that repurposing those buildings would take “a leap of faith.”
On Oct. 18, the town’s Village Review Board approved demolition of the buildings at 81 and 85 Pleasant St. and 1 and 3 Stanwood St., reversing a vote it made in July to preserve the structures.
Preparations to raze the buildings began on Nov. 21.
The town’s police station subcommittee will meet today to consider Darcy’s letter and to receive an update on the design process for the police station project.
The subcommittee will meet at 4 p.m. in the Town Council chambers at Brunswick Station, 16 Station Ave.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
