WESTBROOK – City officials and the Elowitch family are still trying to work out whether the aging former Maine Rubber plant at the western end of Main Street in Westbrook could be torn down to make way for some new business development.
But when asked why it hasn’t happened yet, each party says it is waiting for the other to make a move.
“I said (to the city), we really can’t move forward unless we market it to banks with a drive-through,” said David Elowitch, a member of the family that owns the property.
To do that, Elowitch said, he needs a zoning variance from the city to allow for a bank drive-through before he can get a bank to commit to building on the site.
“Their response has been, ‘We don’t want to fight City Hall,’” Elowitch said, referring to various banks he has reached out to, who all cited the lack of the variance as the biggest problem.
City officials, meanwhile, have said Elowitch can get that variance once he has a proposal on the table from a bank willing to build there.
Keith Luke, the city’s economic and community development director, cited Ocean Communities Federal Credit Union, which in 2006 bought up the old post office building on William Clarke Drive before getting a drive-through variance, as proof that banks don’t need the variance before committing.
“It didn’t stop (the credit union) from moving in,” he said.
The Elowitch family has argued with the city for years about how to develop the property, starting in 1998, David Elowitch said, when the family tried to build a gas station on the property. The city shot the proposal down.
“They didn’t want another gas station there,” he said.
Other proposals came and went, Elowitch said, until 2006, when he paid a private firm to come up with a plan he felt would reflect what city officials at the time envisioned being there. The result was a plan for a 38,000 square-foot “mixed use” office complex.
Elowitch said city officials loved it, but he said the city would have to create more parking in the area, and use a tax-increment finance plan to help Elowitch offset the high rents he would have to charge after building the $6 million complex.
The city refused, he said. Snce then, Elowitch has offered “four or five” different smaller proposals, all of which involved some sort of drive-through business. Elowitch said there is also some dispute as to whether the city can grant access to the site from William Clarke Drive, a state highway that runs parallel to the property, but the drive-through issue is the main problem.
In the latest development, Luke recently announced a $125,000 grant was available to the Elowitch family to help pay for the cost of tearing down the aging building, commonly regarded as an eyesore on the edge of town.
Molly Just, who became city planner in 2007, declined to comment on the city’s negotiations with the Elowitch family before her time there, but said tearing the building down would be a step in the right direction, making the property more attractive to future development. The land, she said, lies along a key commuter corridor, and is highly visible.
“Everyone wants to see this western gate developed,” she said.
Elowitch said even with the grant, there were several reasons why he couldn’t tear it down, chiefly that he earns a small income from a tenant who rents the building out for storage. Elowitch acknowledged it’s not much, but it’s enough to keep up with property taxes and other basic maintenance costs. Without a tenant ready to move in, Elowitch said, it was unclear how long the lot would remain vacant after the cleanup.
So for now, the building remains much as it has since the late 1990s. Elowitch, whose family owns 13 properties in seven communities, including Westbrook, said he wants to see something better on the property, whether it’s a bank, office complex, or something no one has thought of yet. He remains open to any proposal from any business that will come forward, and said he wants to see the property built up as badly as anyone else.
“We’re not greedy, looking for more and more,” he said. “We’re not anti-Westbrook.”
Just said she hopes the Elowitch family will take advantage of the grant money to take the building down, but other than offering the grant, there’s little she or the city can do to help clean up the property.
“We’ve already taken a step in their direction,” she said. “If they want to take the money, great. If they don’t, (then) it’s been there for years, (and) it’s going to be there a little longer.”
A part of the former Maine Rubber plant, as seen from the corner
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