The South Portland Planning Board is set to take public comment next week on a proposed 118-unit, market-rate apartment complex in the Brick Hill neighborhood.
The board will hold a public hearing on the project at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 9. This will be the first of two formal meetings on the proposal, according to developer Kevin Bunker, principal at the Developers Collaborative in Portland.
If the project receives final site plan approval in September, as expected, Bunker said, his goal would be to break ground sometime in October and have units ready to move into by spring 2017.
The project would consist of nine buildings, with “nice, big spacious,” one- and two-bedroom units, Bunker said this week. The plan is to construct one or two buildings initially and rent those out while the other buildings are still going up, he added.
Bunker said the 6-acre site is the last developable lot in Brick Hill. It’s the one furthest in and closest to the Portland International Jetport. The project, being developed under the name Riverbrook Properties, would be built on Lydia Lane.
He said the Brick Hill land is still state-owned, but was developed under a long-term, 90-year lease. He is subleasing the Riverbrook acres from Brick Hill’s original developer, Richard Berman.
While most of the units in Brick Hill are affordable, low-income or senior housing, the Riverbrook development would be market rate, with units going for between $1,100 and $1,400 a month, Bunker said this week. He said the units would include central air conditioning and would have two parking spots each.
Bunker said the Riverbrook lot was initially approved for a 76,000-square-foot office building back in 2009, but it never got built in the midst of the economic downturn that marked the last few years of the decade.
“Now with residential demand so great, especially in South Portland,” Bunker said, “we can more easily get funding” for housing units. “There is a housing crunch and one of the needs is for market-rate units. So we’re happy to be part of meeting that demand.”
Bunker is partnering with Risbara Bros. Construction, which will be the general contractors on the job.
This past spring, Bunker and Risbara Bros. sought a zone change from the City Council that would lift the ceiling on the number of units allowed in Brick Hill from an original 300 to a total of 335.
That zone change was approved, which has allowed the Riverbrook proposal to move forward.
An architectural rendering of what the apartment buildings at the new Riverbrook development would look like.
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