FARMINGTON — Residents at a special town meeting Tuesday voted to give a Waterville-based company a tax break that will allow the company to move forward with their plans to develop an assisted-living center on Knowlton Corner Road.
About 10 residents attended the 7 p.m. meeting and unanimously voted in favor of the tax break, in which 100 percent of the property taxes paid on the $4 million “memory care” center that Woodlands Senior Living is developing will be reimbursed to the company for 10 years.
The terms of the property tax break, known as a tax increment financing agreement, were approved by selectmen earlier this month, but final approval of the agreement must be authorized by voters at a special town meeting.
Matthew Walters, who co-owns Woodlands Senior Living with his father, Lon, said that because the land where they are going to build the 32-bed center is completely undeveloped, a 10-year period of tax deferment will blunt some of the upfront development costs.
Lon Walters said the startup development costs for the Farmington site are about $800,000, and the TIF terms he and his son approached the town with were an attempt to get those development costs back.
Based on a $4 million property assessment with a projected tax rate of $18.80, $75,200 will be captured annually in the TIF, for a 10-year approximate total of $750,000 of tax money being reimbursed to Woodlands Senior Living.
Each year, the company will pay the $75,200 in taxes, which the town then will transfer into the “Woodlands Senior Living of Farmington Municipal Development Tax Increment Financing District Development Program” account. The town then will disburse the tax funds back to the company through that account.
The project is expected to get underway later this summer, and with a 12-month expected construction timeline, the facility could be open for business by the end of summer 2017.
Woodlands Senior Living operates 12 assisted-living residencies in Maine. The center they are building in Farmington will specialize in providing care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Matthew Walters said the center will be the only one of its kind in the area and will create up to 30 full-time jobs, with additional part-time jobs as well.
He said a big factor in choosing the plot of land on Knowlton Corner Road is the possibility of further development beyond the initial $4 million project. He said it is likely that a second phase of development would occur, possibly in the form of an apartment-style care center on the site.
Lauren Abbate — 861-9252
Twitter: @Lauren_M_Abbate
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