BRUNSWICK

Planning Board members this week unanimously approved plans for a twophase commercial expansion of a contracting business on Harpswell Road.

Dan Roderick, who owns Mid-coast Woodworkers, wants to replace his existing office building and storage sheds at 104 Harpswell Road with three new 5,000-squarefoot buildings.

Despite increasing the buildings’ footprints, the overall impervious surface at the two-acre lot would be diminished, according to civil engineer Curt Neufeld. Additional landscaping and turf, as well as a new catch basin and drainage system that far exceeds the lot’s needed capacity, would eliminate pooling or overflow onto Harpswell Road or off the lot’s back corners, he said.

The first phase, a new storage building and reseeding part of the gravel parking lot, is to start later this month and be complete by December.

The final phase — a second storage and new office building — would have to be finished by Dec. 31, 2018.

Despite minor technical questions about the proposed drainage system, board members had no qualms with Roderick’s site plan.

All of the buildings will keep a New England-style appearance, Neufeld said, with muted colors, vinyl siding and asphalt shingle or standing-seam metal roofs.

Estimated value of the total project is about $1.5 million.

One of the property’s rear corners borders Bowdoin College and a section of walking trail.

Board member Steve Walker said the trail section could be improved with slight relocation of an existing fence He suggested Roderick contact Parks and Recreation Director Tom Farrell “to make that section of trail more attractive.”