Penobscot Landing

BREWER — A boat-building museum, a public marina, an aquarium and a bed-and-breakfast were some components of a waterfront proposal that the principals of Majal Engineering pitched to the local planning board Thursday night.

Henckler was among nearly 30 University of Maine seniors who came to City Hall to fulfill the final requirement of their capstone engineering course. A Bangor High School graduate, Henckler has wanted to be an engineer since he was 5, said his parents, Don and Joyce Henckler. The Hencklers were among several family members, friends and professors who turned out to hear proposals for Brewer’s waterfront developed by the UM student engineers.

As part of their capstone design course, the seniors were divided into five teams and charged with developing alternative designs for Penobscot Landing — as Brewer’s waterfront now is known — based on the master redevelopment plan the City Council adopted in November.

Some attractions proposed for Penobscot Landing, which runs from just north of the Penobscot River Bridge south to the Orrington line, are a riverside recreational path, an entertainment and niche retail district, a marina and a boat launch, a children’s garden, a public market and artisan cooperative, museums, a boat-building demonstration site and a small performing arts center.

Professor Dana Humphrey of the UM civil and environmental engineering department said earlier that the capstone project is an annual requirement for civil and environmental engineering majors.

The five teams spent the last semester looking at a variety of engineering and design issues as they pertain to Brewer’s waterfront.

During their presentations, the soon-to-be engineers addressed such real-life redevelopment issues as waterfront erosion, traffic and parking, storm water management, environmental impacts, cost estimates, designs for major structures, ways to improve waterfront access, water distribution and fire hydrant planning and which existing elements should be improved or redeveloped and which should be demolished.

Though the group considered the entire waterfront, their area of focus for Thursday’s presentations was the section of South Main Street that runs roughly from the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge south to Kustom Steel. Among the real properties explored were the old Dirigo schoolhouse, the Brookings-Smith Funeral Home, the Harborside Restaurant building, Dead River Oil Co. and the now-defunct box factory built at the end of the 19th century.

Using such visual aids as site maps, architectural renderings and PowerPoint presentations, several of the presenters also sought to capitalize on Brewer’s boat-building heritage and incorporated some of the historical architectural features found in the Bangor-Brewer area.

Gary Briggs, a member of the Brewer planning board, and Michael Celli, a former board member now serving on the City Council, were among those who liked what they saw.

“This was super experience for the city of Brewer to get a collection of ideas that many not have been looked at otherwise,” Celli said. Said Briggs, “I really love the idea of drawing on the heritage of the 1700s and 1800s.”

Drew Sachs, the city’s economic development director, said this week that the students’ projects will provide detailed, specific information that will prove useful to city staff, property owners, prospective developers and others involved in turning the city’s waterfront master plan into reality. For example, cost estimates for various aspects of the redevelopment effort were based on actual costs for services and material.

The point of the annual exercise is to arm the students with some of the work experience they’ll need as they venture into the job market, Humphrey said. As in a real design firm, the five teams worked under tight deadlines and budget constraints, submitting monthly invoices as their work progressed.

“Were they challenged? Absolutely,” Humphrey said. He estimated the dollar value of the students’ work, had their engineering firms been real, at between $50,000 and $100,000 per team.

Despite signs that the economy is souring, these students’ job prospects are bright.

“The job market for engineering is really hot,” Humphrey said. “It’s still a very, very strong market. “Our students can work anywhere they want.”

According to the students, jobs abound in the areas of environmental, transportation and geotechnical engineering.

“It’s good right now,” said Rachel Long, a member of the North Woods Engineering team. Added Jeff MacDonald, whose father Michael is assistant to City Manager Stephen Bost, beginning engineers can fetch jobs with starting salaries of nearly $50,000 a year.

According to students Andrew Hedrich and Ben Schuren, many members of the Class of 2001 began interviewing in December and most already have landed jobs. Others, they said, planned to pursue graduate-level studies or take a little time off.

On Thursday night, however, jobs were not necessarily foremost in the students’ minds. With their capstone projects out of the way, the students were headed for a hard-earned break at Pat’s Pizza in Orono, an institution for generations of UMaine students.

The City of Brewer
80 North Main Street
Brewer, ME 04412
207-989-7500
www.brewerme.org