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York planners to take up Atlantic House conversion

By JASON GRAY
Democrat Staff Writer
February 21, 2006

YORK, Maine — The planning board tonight may give its final approval for the conversion of the 1888 Atlantic House at York Beach.

Tonight's discussion, which begins at 7 p.m. at the York Senior Center on Route 1A, was accidentally included by the planning department on the board's Feb. 9 agenda; due to that error, the planning board was not allowed to proceed anyway because abutters to the Atlantic House had not been notified.

For three years now, Rivers by the Sea, a local real estate development company, has been trying to restore the 1888 Atlantic House on Beach Street and Main Street. Don Rivers, owner of the company, is the project's developer.

Rivers wants to restore the four-story Atlantic House to its original look, adding five retail shops to the first floor, a 230-seat restaurant to the second floor, and nine condominiums on the third and fourth floors.

Rivers is pursuing the Atlantic House project in conjunction with the conversion of the Kearsarge House, another 1888 building on Main Street and Ocean Avenue. The plan for the Kearsarge is to restore it, add restaurants and four or five retail shops on the bottom floors, and 19 condominiums on the upper floors.

Rivers's daughter, Lorri O'Brien, who owns the Atlantic House, and Harold Anderson, who owns the Kearsarge, are working together to start a joint condominium association in York. Both the Atlantic and Kearsarge Houses are designated historic landmarks.

In order to use the condominiums as year-round units, developers must obtain growth permits for each one. Currently, the town's growth ordinance limits developers to three permits per year. In the meantime, developers intend to rent the condominiums as hotel suites, in order to help pay for the projects.

The Planning Board approved the Kearsarge conversion on Feb. 9 and agreed to allow Anderson to rent the condominium units as hotel suites. As suites, the units are limited to 100-square-foot kitchens until growth and condominium conversion permits can be obtained.