By Michael Kelley

Staff Writer

An out-of-state company is looking to help fill the need for senior housing in Scarborough.

Wegman Companies headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., has plans to create a 59,000-square-foot assisted living facility on vacant property on the corner of Route 1 and Black Point Road.

“The general Portland area seemed like a good market for us,” said Joe McEntee, vice president in charge of senior housing. “It has a lot of things we were looking for. The town of Scarborough was particularly attractive to us.”

The group will be at the Jan. 30 Planning Board meeting to seek approval of the site plan they have created for its 81-unit facility, which will include studio and one-bedroom apartments. McEntee said 20 of the units would be used for individuals in need of dementia care. All of the residents, he added, will be offered meals, housekeeping and medication management.

“I don’t expect the board to make a final decision on the project at the meeting because part of the project also needs approval from the Zoning Board of Appeals,” said Scarborough Town Planner Dan Bacon. “A portion of the building will be used for intensive dementia care, which requires approval from the ZBA.”

The Zoning Board of Appeals approval is needed because the dementia care is considered a nursing home use rather than a residential use. Nursing homes are allowed in the zone, but only with special exception from the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Bacon said the Planning Board will discuss the project then pass it along to the Zoning Board of Appeals before it eventually winds up back on a Planning Board agenda. There will be opportunity for the public to comment on the project during the Jan. 30 meeting.

Bacon said when the Planning Board first reviewed the project’s sketch plan, there were concerns about the traffic impact of the facility.

“There were certainly questions about access and traffic impact given the location of the project and its proximity to the Oak Hill intersection,” Bacon said. “In the early stages there were concerns with the traffic backing up there in the early morning and evening. I suspect there will be additional questions and concerns with that, but (the applicant) has tried to address some of those concerns.”

McEntee said traffic won’t be an issue due to the nature of the business.

“Traffic is an issue, but I think it will work out. Assisted living facilities generally don’t generate a lot of traffic. Not a lot of our residents will have vehicles,” he said.

Gorrill-Palmer Consulting Engineers is serving as a traffic consultant on the project.

Wegman is proposing 53 parking spaces, four more than the project’s size requires. According to the project file in the Scarborough Planning Office similar sized projects in Queensbury and Brockport, N.Y., have not had parking issues in the 10 years they have operated.

The busiest time of day, when the parking lot will be its fullest, will be at 3 p.m. when there may be as many as 31 staff present, with the morning shift leaving and the afternoon shift coming into work.

McEntee said the company was attracted to the property because of its convenience to Black Point Road and Route 1, two major roads in Scarborough.

“Exposure and visibility is big for us,” he said. “We don’t like to be on overly busy roads, but we like to have folks in the community know where we are so when it comes time for assisted living, people are familiar with where we are.”

The entrance to the project, which is located behind the Citgo station, will be 300 feet from the intersection of Black Point Road and Route 1. Bacon said the project has been designed so that it is as far from the Oak Hill intersection as possible.

The two-story building will feature two wings heading south and west. Parking will be in front of the building and will be accessed from a driveway on the southern side of the property.

“The present layout offers a balance between the needs of the facility for connectivity to the surrounding neighborhood and the privacy and tranquility for facility residents,” Andrew Johnston, a consultant on the project from SMRT architecture, engineering and planning firm, wrote in a summary of the project.

The 8.5-acre property, as it exists now, is an open field of trees. Some of the trees will be retained to serve as a screen, or buffer, between the facility, the abutting properties and Black Point Road. Other trees, however, will have to come down as part of the construction process.

“We will have a significant landscaping plan that we will be presenting to the Planning Board,” McEntee said. “We will try to keep as many good hardwood trees as possible.”

In an effort to keep in harmony with the recommendations of the Oak Hill Pedestrian Study, commissioned by the town in 2010 find ways to make Oak Hill more pedestrian friendly, the project will include a sidewalk along the property on Black Point Road.

The Town Council has made implementing some of the recommendations from the study one of its goals for 2012.

When constructed, the as-of-yet unnamed facility will join several other similar venues in the Oak Hill section of Scarborough. Bessey Commons, an independent senior living facility, opened on the site of the former Bessey School on Route 1 in 2008. Scarborough Terrace and Maine Veterans Home are located on Route 1, just south of the site.

After obtaining the proper approval from the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals, the hope is for the project to break ground in late spring or early summer and be completed by summer 2013.