Northern Forest Center breaks ground on Greenville housing project

GREENVILLE — The ground was ceremonially broken for a $12.5 million 24-unit Greenville housing project on five acres off Spruce Street on Aug. 27.

Timber Way will provide affordable housing for year-round residents and those looking to move to the Moosehead Lake Region to buy or rent longterm. The development is coming together through the Northern Forest Center and partner organizations to include a mix of single-family homes and duplexes, ranging from one to three bedrooms, in a clustered neighborhood designed to encourage community connections among residents.

The housing initiative builds on the center’s other past and current work in the Moosehead Lake Region, which includes funding for an Extended Learning Opportunity coordinator in school, producing the new Moosehead Outdoor Recreation Investment Strategy, providing grants for downtown businesses to improve storefronts, helping to redevelop the lakefront boardwalk and Crafts Landing Park and providing business innovation grants to tourism-related enterprises.  

The Northern Forest Center is an innovation and investment partner working across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. Rooted in community, forest stewardship, and economic development, the Center is the only nonprofit delivering integrated, cross-state solutions in the region to help rural people and places thrive. Learn more at northernforest.org. 

Northern Forest Center Senior Program Director Mike Wilson welcomed the dozens of attendees with cleared plots for the future homes behind him. There are two pieces of the project to celebrate, the groundbreaking and the Northern Forest Center working with the town to extend public infrastructure to the parcel.

A $1.4 million related public infrastructure project brought public water and sewer service to the property and constructed a new town road, Timber Way.  Funding for the expansion came largely from a grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission.

“We’ve had a great partnership with the town on that,” Wilson said, from the initial concept to near the start of home construction. He said the Moosehead Lake Region Economic Development Corporation owned the five acres before the center acquired the land and Sargent Corporation was the lead infrastructure contractor. The business is working on underground utilities, site grading and foundation pads for the first phase of 10 homes. Plans are for the first homes to be available for purchase or rent by fall 2026 and for all 10 Phase 1 homes to be completed in spring 2027.  

“With the completion of that work that is also triggering an exciting piece for us at the Northern Forest Center which is actually building these houses,” Wilson said.

The center is working in partnership with TMBR, a mass timber design company, to create quality homes using an innovative mass timber system customized for rural places. The mass timber homes will feature open concept floor plans and range from roughly 1,000 to 1,600 square feet.  

The idea for the Greenville housing project began a half decade ago, Northern Forest Center Director of Community Investment Maura Adams said. The organization had converted older buildings into affordable apartments in Millinocket, Lancaster, New Hampshire and St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The center is in its final phase of creating nine apartments in a new building that will open this fall in Tupper Lake, New York that also uses some mass timber components.  

Knowing the MLREDC had five acres in Greenville, contact was made and developments began with partners including the town and Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital.

“I am so proud we are making this happen, there is so little housing being built in this region and it is so desperately needed,” Adams said. 

Restrictions will be in place for the residences to be those living in town full-time and covenants will keep prices economical and prevent these from being turned into short-term rentals, she said.

Northern Forest Center officials met TMBR CEO Josh Oakley and together they had a similar vision to answer the question of “how do you make beautiful, efficient, cost-effective houses in rural places?,” Adams said.  “We had a place to try that because if you can do that in Greenville, Maine, you can do that anywhere.”

The Timber Way homes, which will be built at scale and fabricated in Auburn, “Have the potential to transform rural housing across the country, which is so exciting to see this happen in Greenville,” she said.

The first 10 homes will be put up this fall and the number will grow to two dozen. 

The housing development is a dream come true, MLREDC President Margarita Contreni said.

“The lack of available quality housing for the residents of our region was inhibiting regional economic growth and threatening the viability of existing businesses and local institutions like the hospital,” she said.

The corporation’s mission is to grow and sustain local businesses and to attract and create new jobs to enhance the economy of the region. Affordable housing is a critical component, Contreni said, and the five acres was acquired for this purpose. Potential developers looked into the site but efforts were stalled due to increasing construction costs exacerbated by COVID-19.

In early 2022 the MLREDC and Northern Forest Center agreed to partner to investigate together.

“We are ecstatic to see the construction begin,” Contreni said. “We know that in the near future our local employers who struggle to recruit new workers and grow their businesses will be eased and more local workers will make Greenville their home.”

Weyerhaeuser Public Affairs Manager Chris Fife said the company recognizes a lack of affordable housing as one of the biggest issues facing rural Maine communities

“We believe that strong partnerships are critical to finding solutions to that problem,” Fife said, saying Weyerhaeuser is proud to have seen the Northern Forest Center step up and invest in the community.

“Projects like Timber Way demonstrate what local leadership can do for the future,” he said, saying the seeds of the project were planted during development of the Plum Creek Moosehead concept plan with a parcel set aside for affordable housing.

“It’s incredibly gratifying to see this vision move forward through the efforts of the Northern Forest Center, the leadership in Greenville and other essential partners,” Fife said. 

“As an employer we continue to see the impact first hand of a lack of affordable housing in the community,” he said.

Foresters and logging contractors interested in moving to the community have told Weyerhaeuser they were unable to find housing to fit their needs and price range.

“Timber Way is a major step in addressing affordable housing in Greenville, it’s also positing Greenville as an example for other rural forest-based communities,” Fife said. “Today is a celebration not just of housing but of the collaborative spirit that makes rural communities stronger”

“Today is about much more than breaking ground on the housing project, it’s about partnerships and finding solutions to challenges that have stood in the way for a number of years,” Greenville Town Manager Mike Roy said.

Lack of infrastructure was a barrier to site development, Roy said. The Northern Forest Center stepped in as a true problem solver, helping the town overcome that challenge by securing funding, managing complex project requirements and bringing together the right partners to move this project forward.

The center helped the town secure a near $1 million Northern Border Region Commission grant and coordinating engineering and project management efforts.

“Most importantly, this critical infrastructure was completed without an additional burden to local taxpayers – that’s huge,” Roy said.

“Success stories like these are always the result of collaboration,” he said. The center worked with the Greenville Select Board and Planning Board and town staff throughout the process.

“Attainable housing remains one of Greenville’s highest priorities,” the town manager said. “This project will provide the ability to attract and retain workers, support local businesses, grow our economy and provide quality places for people to live, work and play in the local region. This project represents an important investment in Greenville’s future and demonstrates what can happen when organizations are willing to work together toward a shared goal. Northern Forest Center has proven to be a partner that is persistent, resourceful and committed to getting things done.”

Northern Forest Center President Rob Riley presented Roy with a Timber Way sign.

Riley thanked all those involved in the project, including those behind the scenes.

It is important to have a comfortable place to come home to, he said, with those present knowing this and wanting to have the opportunity available to other people.

Riley asked the audience to imagine what the neighborhood would like in a year’s time.

“It’s not about putting up a house cheaply, it’s about putting up a house with integrity that really feels good when you come into it,” he said.