March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

David, Goliath and Rite Aid

Bangor’s poorest neighborhood will be assaulted again by Rite Aid at the city council meeting Monday, July 13 at 6 p.m. David vs. Goliath, but this time David has no smooth stones for protection, only a fragile zoning ordinance. The issue is whether Bangor should change the zone from residential to commercial for a small, blighted enclave on Union Street and thus save itself the time and trouble needed to revitalize the area.

Rite Aid is now 4,000 stores strong and for reasons that are unclear is intent on cornering the rural pharmacy market in Maine. Dexter, Dover-Doxcroft, Milo, Guilford and Brewer have fallen before its onslaught with nary a residual ripple. The classic 160-year-old Blethen House hotel in Dover-Foxcroft hit hard times and fell to Rite Aid; the historic brick and slate Masonic Building in Guilford will soon be but a memory entombed in tar.

Rite Aid chooses its sites well — locations between two busy roads for drive-through convenience — not just any vacant underutilized commmerical land, but land close to the center of the heart and soul of the community. Union Place at the junction of Union and Hammond Streets in Bangor is next, 12 old houses, of which five are dilapidated, with more than 40 units and perhaps 100 people. An old, poor neighborhood. But a neighborhood.

The contrast between Rite Aid and Union Place is striking:

Land use — The sanitized drive-through architecture of Rite Aid’s “New England” model vs. the last of old Bangor, a hodge-podge of houses, undistinguished but real. These are houses within walking distance to jobs and downtown, a place close to public transportation where people without cars can live. It would require work, but the city could revive the area by demolishing two abandoned houses, installing a sewer line and paving the access road. Once lost to residential use the area will never again see houses and families. Research has documented that communities that do the best economically over time have retained their local character.

Cars — A new emporium catering to cars in the center of Bangor vs. people who walk to work, who sit on their front stoops, who know each other — a community. The slow rejuvenation of Bangor that is moving up Hammond Street across from the courthouse will stall when confronted by a 2-acre parking lot. Other residential houses in the area will be less attractive and lose value. Rite Aid’s egress will add to the congestion of the five roads that already intersect at Hammond and Union streets.

People — Well-tanned and tailored male lawyers and businessmen, articulate, engaging and well-to-do vs. the urban poor, the elderly, women and children. Where will these 100 displaced persons end up? There is little low-income housing available in Bangor. What will the city do to provide for the welfare of these people?

Money — The New York Stock Exchange’s go-go 10 billion darling vs. Bangor’s least influential and affluent. With its considerable clout, Rite Aid has applied for a contract zone change, that provision that exists to iron out the small idiosyncrasies in the zoning map of Bangor. But what Rite Aid will really accomplish is a major change in the city’s comprehensive plan, the dismemberment from within of a large viable residential area close to downtown. What will happen 10 years from now when Rite Aid’s corporate headquarters in Camp Hill, Pa., , shuts down the store because the poor profit margins elsewhere? Will the next owner adhere to the restrictions that the city has negotiated or wheedle a special deal for an all night store, for liquor sales? What kind of people will hang around downtown then?

Rite Aid speaks soothingly to the city, promising to remove blight and install order. But Goliath is an untrustworthy bedmate. At the first City Council meeting dealing with this topic an unmarried single woman shaid she would prefer to walk her dog at night through Union Place — it is knowable and safe — rather than through an empty nighttime parking lot frequented by anonymous cars. The price of prednisone went from $7 to $11 when Rite Aid took over Guilford. Rite Aid does not deliver to home-bound patients, boarding homes or nursing homes.

When complete, the new store will offer one less job to our community than the current store 150 feet across Union Street because of its new efficient method for stocking shelves. What is this Rite Aid store offering Bangor in return for tearing down a viable section of the city?

The city council has important choices to make on Monday — between big business and little people between asphalt and houses, between out of state corporate headquarters and local control, between Rite Aid’s version of “urban renewal” and a slow regeneration with greater fidelity tot he character of our local community. There is no compelling reason for a zone change from residential to commercial, only corporate cupidity. If Bangor’s Comprehensive Plan is to be changed it should be debated publicly, not dismembered covertly under the guise fo a contract zone change.

Bangor already lost a significant portion of its soul during urban renewal in the 1960s. Was there no lesson learned? The council must not abandon the historical complexity of our city; if Bangor eventually looks like New Jersey, we will have only ourselves to blame.

Geoffrey Gratwick, M.D. lives in Bangor.


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