WESTBROOK – As Westbrook receives a “business friendly” designation from Gov. Paul LePage, three storefronts are changing hands in the downtown area.

“I think Westbrook is really primed for an art gallery,” said Andy Curran, who is opening Saccarappa Art Collective at 861 Main St. on Friday. Curran said 11 artists, including himself, will display and sell their work in the gallery, with each artist having 12 feet of wall space to work with.

“They’ll have this substantial wall space to use for their work,” he said.

Also opening on Main Street on Oct. 1 is Soma Massage and Wellness next door to the collective, in the space formerly occupied by Northeast Apparel. The new location is an expansion on the company’s existing business in South Portland, according to Julie Wright, owner and founder.

“South Portland has kept us busy and continues to,” Wright said. “We are fortunate to have a great staff that helped us grow to this point and with their help we are able to move more confidently into another space.”

Bill Baker, director of business and community relations/assistant city manager, said he is “very enthusiastic” about the new businesses, saying they serve as a sign that there is still an interest in building up the downtown.

“Clearly the downtown is a focus of our efforts,” he said.

Curran has dabbled in selling artwork before. He and his wife used to run the Edmonds-Curran Gallery at Prides Corner on the corner of Elmwood Avenue and Route 302. At the time, he said, there was talk about widening Route 302, and concerns that the gallery would be taken by eminent domain led to the Currans closing it.

Now, Curran joked, “I’m older and wiser,” and said he hopes having this gallery on busy Main Street will boost interest.

A Westbrook native, Curran, 49, said he is looking forward to showcasing the work of local artists. Many of them, he said, are mid-career, and have shown their works in larger galleries and established themselves in media such as oil paints, pastels, drawings, and even some clay sculpture.

“We’ve all been in it for a while,” he said.

Frank Valliere of Gorham has produced oil paintings, pastel work and lithographs that have appeared in the Portland Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Curran’s enthusiasm, he said, made it easy for him to agree to get on board.

“He came to me and said, ‘It’d be a real boon to have you here,’” he said.

Also displaying work will be Jeremy Greene, known to Gorham as “The Art Guru.” He recently closed an art supply store with that same name, and now he said he has more time to paint.

“I’m in this for the community of artists,” he said. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Curran said Studio 59 Pilates, which was formerly located at 861 Main St., moved to 39 Mechanic St.

Across Main Street, Paper Moon, an art, jewelry and gift shop, will be going out of business on Friday, the day the art gallery opens. The company’s owner, Jan Curran, said the company has been at its Main Street location since May 2009, and for a time it was doing quite well.

“I really liked being here,” she said. “We were kind of on a climb.”

But, she said, the sagging economy led to even her most loyal customers spending less. That put a spotlight on perennial problems of traffic flow and parking that she said have never gone away.

Part of the problem, she said, was that the most logical place to park is behind the CVS Pharmacy next door to her, and with a traffic light at the Bridge Street intersection, it seemed logical to have people turning left to get into the lot.

But that’s not allowed there, and more than once Jan Curran recalled customers actually coming into her shop in a bad mood, because they had been stopped by police for trying to make the turn.

Without turning left, Jan Curran said, visitors have to drive down Main Street, then backtrack through the parking lot to get to her. The most traffic she ever had, she said, was while the state Department of Transportation was rebuilding William Clarke Drive, forcing more vehicles to pass by.

“I had a lot of new people who had never seen my shop,” she said.

But to succeed in a space like hers, she said, traffic has to be controlled better, and customers need to be told where they can park nearby. To fix this, she said, city officials need to think like visitors.

“You have to pretend you’re not from here,” she said.

Baker acknowledged that parking and traffic in that area is a serious problem. Even now, he said, he and other city officials are trying to work out a solution.

“That’s all a work in progress,” he said.

The tough part is making sure that improving the traffic situation on Main Street doesn’t lead to trouble on the other side of CVS, where there is also a credit union and the Family Dollar store.

“That’s the complication with resolving these issues,” he said.

Baker said he was pleased to see Westbrook designated as “business friendly,” but he views the proclamation as a jumping-off point to more progress. The designation, which the governor has granted to a number of other communities statewide, is geared toward marketing a community to new businesses.

“That designation should not be a destination. It should be a starting point,” Baker said. “Now, it’s our obligation to live up to that designation.”

Andy Curran is hoping his new art gallery, opening this Friday, will be the leading edge of a growing artists’ community in Westbrook.
Staff photo by Sean Murphy