Windham Business Gathering to discuss sewers, Route 302 project and proposed community center

By Ed Pierce

A Windham Business Gathering hosted by the Windham Economic Development Corporation will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30 at Erik’s Church in Windham.

A MaineDOT map shows improvements planned for a 
portion of Routes 302, 35 and 115 in North Windham.
It is one of three topics to be discussed at a Windham 
Business Gathering at Erik's Church on Sept. 30
hosted by the Windham Economic Development
Corporation. COURTESY PHOTO 

Among items of interest to be discussed at the gathering are the new sewer project in Windham, the Route 302 Project, and the proposed community center complex at Windham Middle School.

A cash bar and hot and cold hors d’oeuvres will be available.

Eric Gigure, WEDC president, Mark Morrison, Windham Town Council chair, and Robert Burns, Windham Town Manager will make remarks about the projects.

There will also be a Question-and-Answer session with members of the Windham Town Council and Windham Economic Development Corporation members.

ROUTE 302 PROJECT

According to the Maine Department of Transportation, the planned Route 302 Project in North Windham will improve a dangerous and inefficient highway bottleneck, improve safety and efficiency for motorists and active transportation users in Windham and provide more uniform accessibility to employment and retail as well as tourism and recreation critical to Maine’s economy.

It involves redesigning about 9,000 feet of Route 302 from River Road to White’s Bridge Road in Windham to improve safety, mobility, and efficiency. The project will add three new connector routes behind the town’s commerce center in North Windham to ease congestion on Route 302 while also making improvements to Routes 35 and 115 to improve safety, mobility, and efficiency.

The work will replace aging traffic signals with new smart signals and make road improvements aimed at benefiting pedestrians and bicyclists by constructing 11,700 feet of new multi-use pathways. All work is expected to be completed by 2030.

MaineDOT first entered into a working partnership in 2019 with the Town of Windham to alleviate traffic congestion on Route 302. In 2022, the state and the town collaborated on a transportation planning and feasibility study called North Windham Moves: Regional Mobility, Local Access.

State transportation officials obtained a RAISE grant in 2023 of $25 million for the project. The total project cost, including design, engineering, right of way and construction costs is $31.25 million. MaineDOT and the Town of Windham will equally split the 20 percent total project cost match of $6.25 million.

Besides congestion, the project area had seven high-crash locations (HCLs) in the three-year period from 2018 to 2020 alone and MaineDOT staff say the project will assist in reducing crashes and injuries in a commercial area that has grown rapidly around outdated safety features or no safety features at all.

The East Connector Road will be a total of .67 miles and consists of building a local roadway at the eastern terminal of Franklin Drive and extending south to Route 115. It includes intersection connections with Veterans Memorial Drive and Sandbar Road. 

The West Connector Road will be a total of 1.01 miles and consists of building a local roadway beginning at the north terminus of Manchester Drive and extending North about .55 miles to Whites Bridge Road. It includes intersection connections with Landing Road, Amato Drive and Trails End Road.

The existing intersection of Manchester Drive and Route 35 will receive improvements, including a new traffic signal.

The Middle Connector Road will be .14 miles and consists of building a local roadway beginning at the Franklin Drive and the Route 302 intersections and extending southwesterly to Landing Road about 755 feet.

SEWER PROJECT

Plans were approved by Windham voters in a special referendum in June 2022 for a new sewer project that included construction of a public wastewater system and the removal of about 100 septic systems that were discharging into the North Windham aquifer. Because of the lack of an effective sewer system in North Windham, over the years contaminants have continued to pollute the aquifer, threatening surrounding ponds and lakes, and stifling economic growth.

In addition, for the past two decades increasing nitrate levels have been observed in the underlying aquifer that threatened local water resources including Sebago Lake. Current levels of nitrates in the groundwater have exceeded drinking water standards. Septic system pollution entering the aquifer directly impacts surrounding valuable water resources, and this new wastewater treatment plant addresses the issue before the problem escalated and became irreversible.

The wastewater treatment plant is expected to remove 25,000 pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants each year being dumped by septic systems into the aquifer and watershed. The installation of sewers is expected to stimulate significant economic growth in Windham and lead to development in the area by industries and businesses not willing to locate here because of associated septic system issues and costs.

COMMUNITY CENTER REFERENDUM

Windham voters will be asked on Nov. 3 to approve issuing general obligation bonds up to $19.5 million in a referendum to finance the costs of rehabilitating the Windham Middle School for use as a community center and moving the Windham Public Library and Town of Windham municipal offices there. It includes the costs of design, engineering, professional services, site preparation, construction, renovation, operating costs, and other improvements and furnishings as may be required in connection with the project. The proposal includes appropriating up to $2 million of the town’s fund balance as the Town Council deems reasonable and necessary to reduce the borrowing amount and directly pay for costs of the project.

As part of the referendum to obtain $131.7 million in state funding to build a new middle school for students in Windham and Raymond, RSU 14 voters agreed in 2023 that the existing Windham Middle School could not be used as a school again, since the state had already contributed funding for substantial repair costs over decades of the building’s use. In formulating the proposal as to how best to repurpose the WMS building, WMS Repurpose Advisory worked with an architect and design team and toured the Westbrook and Gorham Community Centers to see how those towns adapted old school buildings for community center facilities.

Determining that the basic structure of the school was sound and that it offered 80,000 square feet of available space, the committee looked at the existing town buildings with long-term replacement costs and short-term maintenance, parking improvements and repair costs and decided that a number of municipal services could be relocated to the site for a fraction of the cost of renovating or replacing current buildings.

To RSVP to attend the Windham Business Gathering, send an email to [email protected] <