photos/Chris Busby

The empty service station at 109 Main St. in Gorham is what we call a gateway dump, a dilapidated property located at a highly trafficked entry point into town. Portland had one of these for years: the old Mobil at the corner of Brighton Avenue and Riverside Street, which was finally knocked down and hauled away last summer.

The sight of a gateway dump gives visitors the sense that they’re entering a town in decline, a community whose best days are behind it. “It’s a first impression, and it’s a bad one,” said Carson Lynch, owner of The Gorham Grind, a coffee shop in the central part of town known as Gorham Village. The condition of the dump down the street is a not uncommon topic of conversation among customers, Lynch said.

“It’s probably the single property we would most like to see redeveloped in Gorham,” said Tom Ellsworth, who heads the Gorham Economic Development Corporation.

One would think businesses would be clamoring to score this spot and set up shop. Situated at the point where New Portland Road meets Main Street, the parcel has exceptionally high visibility and traffic counts — over 21,000 vehicles pass by it every day, according to a local broker.

But the high traffic presents more of a problem than an opportunity for this little quarter-acre wasteland. Lauren Goodrich found that out the hard way after he bought the property a few years back.

Goodrich planned to relocate the Subway franchise he owns just down the street to this parcel. However, town officials said he would have to make costly traffic improvements at the intersection in order to do so.

Town planner Tom Poirier said Gorham’s fire and public works departments expressed concern about traffic backups that would result when drivers traveling west into town on Main Street tried to take a left into the property’s parking lot. Entry to the parcel would have to be limited to right-hand turns by vehicles traveling east. The cost of reconfiguring the intersection to restrict left turns would have come out of Goodrich’s pocket.

Matt Cardente is the commercial broker who sold the property to Goodrich and who is now trying to sell it again on Goodrich’s behalf. Cardente said he and his client were “surprised” by the town’s demands once the permitting process began. He said planning board meetings he attended prior to selling the parcel to Goodrich gave them confidence the Subway relocation plan would be feasible.

Goodrich called the approval process “arduous.” Although town officials ultimately approved his original plan for the parcel, the traffic limitations and parking constrictions were such that “it didn’t make sense to move.”

The best hope for the property’s redevelopment may lie in the possibility it can be combined with an adjacent parcel that already has traffic access off Main Street. This empty, grassy lot, measuring eight-tenths of an acre, is owned by Hannaford, the supermarket behind this dump.  It’s available for lease for $45,000 a year, said Drew Sigfridson, the broker with CBRE/The Boulos Company who’s listing this parcel.

Both Cardente and Sigfridson say the potential to combine the parcels has generated interest. The annual cost of leasing the service station parcel is $35,000 (the property is also for sale for over ten times that amount). A few “national operations” have looked into acquiring both parcels, Cardente said. Given the cost and location, another fast food chain seems the most likely future owner.

At present, nothing here is happening fast. The paint is slowly peeling off. Weed by weed, Mother Nature is reclaiming her property. A sizeable sapling has taken root and grown in front of one of the two service-bay doors.

But nature and real estate both follow their inexorable paths. “Over the years, I’ve certainly heard from a lot of people that they’d like to see this property redeveloped,” said Sigfridson. “Eventually, it will happen. Eventually, everything leases.”

— Chris Busby