Westbrook City Council, in a special meeting Monday, changed the name of Dana Street to Kidder Lane after a proposed switch to Tailrace Lane failed. The lane will become the entryway for a 110-unit housing project to be built in the heart of the city’s downtown.

The new name maintains a reference to the street’s namesake, Woodbury Kidder Dana, a prominent Westbrook industrialist, who died in 1924.

City historian and former mayor Michael Sanphy, contacted Tuesday, said the street should not have been renamed and called the switch “unbelievable.”

City Planning Director Jennie Franceschi explained to the board the need for a name change with a new housing development set to be built at the end of Dana Street. The street renaming eliminates potential confusion with the city’s Dana Court for emergency responders.

Franceschi said the city wanted the developer of the housing project to have an address to help move the permitting process forward.

The new Kidder Lane eventually will become a “glorified driveway,” she said.

The proposed Tailrace Lane was derived from “the outflow channel of water used to generate power,” according to the city, at the former industrial site on the banks of the Presumpscot River.

Mark Swett of the Westbrook Historical Society said the proposed name change would be a disservice to someone who did a lot for the city, and historical society board member Phil Spiller suggested the street be called Woodbury Dana Lane.

Historical Society President Deb Shangraw, in a letter to the City Council, sought tabling the issue. Shangraw pointed out Dana was a Civil War veteran and a Westbrook benefactor.

City Councilor Michael Shaughnessy had suggested the street be renamed Fish Way in reference to a fish ladder in the Presumpscot River at the end of Dana Street and City Councilor Brian McCambridge suggested Woodbury Way before the board finally settled on Kidder Lane.

The old, vacant American Journal building on Dana Street will be razed to make way for the housing project.

Developer Matt Welter of Quaker Lane Associates in Connecticut said Monday in an email to Westbrook-Gorham Now that a demolition date has not been set as yet. “But it will most definitely be 2026 before anything is done,” Welter said.

The street’s name change was approved 5-0 with council President Claude Rwaganje and Vice President Anna Turcotte absent.