Streetside shot of Lockwood Hotel at night

The Lockwood Hotel (above) and Greene Block + Studios (below) have transformed Waterville’s Main Street.

Downtown Colby

The College’s investments in Waterville have helped transform the community and reinforce long-standing relationships

Colby Staff Reports
Photographs by Ashley L. Conti, Gregory A. Rec, and Gabe Souza

David A. Greene remembers the first time he drove through downtown Waterville, in 2013, while exploring the opportunity to become president of Colby. He noted the sidewalks in disrepair and many empty storefronts. At the south end of Main Street was the long-closed Levine’s clothing store and the block that once housed Waterville Hardware, dilapidated after a fire had left it exposed to the elements. Beyond them were the broken windows of the Lockwood Mill.

The Lockwood Hotel, downtown Waterville’s first new hotel in more than a century, and its onsite restaurant, Front & Main, have helped transform downtown with boutique accommodations and excellent, original food. Developed by Colby with funding from the Harold Alfond Foundation and managed by Charlestowne Hotels, the modern, art-driven $26-million hotel opened to the public in August 2022 with 53 guest rooms.

“It was a really dark, lonely part of the street,” Greene said.

Today, after nearly a decade of working in partnership with city planners and economic leaders, Colby has helped transform downtown Waterville, infusing the city with hope of a brighter economic future.

Under Greene’s leadership, Colby has completed five complicated construction projects in the past five years. Those projects have launched a critical reimagining of downtown Waterville’s streetscape and all that can happen behind its restored façades, made possible through $100 million from Colby and its partners, including donors to the Dare Northward fundraising campaign.

Colby’s foundational contribution attracted a total investment of $200 million, which has allowed for the creation of a two-way traffic pattern and turned once-beloved but long-abandoned blocks into gathering spaces.

Job candidates “want to be at a place where the mission is deeply connected to the community. I appreciate that, because I want to be at places like that, too.”

— President David A. Greene

Greene said there was a fair amount of distrust in Waterville as Colby announced plans for downtown properties starting in 2016. Would the development be “just for show” and built solely in Colby’s interest? “Those were completely reasonable feelings,” Greene said.

Greene Block + Studios, which opened in fall 2021 on the site that once housed a downtown hardware store, is a key community-centric art space, gallery, and meeting hub for the burgeoning creative community of central Maine. The $6.5-million building, with a lead gift from Peter H. Lunder ’56, D.F.A .’98 and Life Trustee Paula Crane Lunder, D.F.A. ’98, is home to the Lunder Institute for American Art and its resident and visiting artists and scholars, and serves as a performance space for musicians and a gathering place for lectures, talks, festivals, and other events.

From his view and others’, the relationship has come a long way. For one thing, Colby chose to keep the properties it has developed downtown on city tax rolls, forgoing opportunities to use its nonprofit status to avoid taxes and providing Waterville with more than $450,000 in annual tax revenue. Greene has described that revenue as “an annuity for Waterville.”

Then there’s the fact that Colby has changed the investment landscape in Waterville at a broader scale, according to Garvan Donegan, director of planning and economic development at the Central Maine Growth Council.

Investment by Colby and its partners has resulted in “de-risking” the downtown, building the economy not through large corporations or franchises with only market-driven ties to Waterville but with local institutions.

That allows private investors to feel confident in the community assets they may rely on, Donegan said. Case in point: Waterville native Todd Alexander ’92 has proposed building two apartment buildings, with retail and office space, at the corner of Front and Temple streets.

Waterville needed these anchors to attract other investors, Donegan said. And the fact that Colby’s projects did not rely on local tax breaks, state subsidies, or a federal community-development block grant left those tools available to assist other projects.

Blending the past and present

It’s a story that hardly needs explaining to anyone who has ever called Waterville home: The city was prosperous through most of the 20th century as a center of railroad activity and river power. Waterville was Colby’s guardian, having raised money through the Great Depression to keep the struggling college in Waterville and move it to a new campus on Mayflower Hill.

The Hollingsworth and Whitney pulp and paper mills across the river in Winslow, later Scott Paper, and the Hathaway Shirt Company in Waterville provided hundreds of steady jobs and fueled a local economy whose influence could be seen all along Main Street in the detailed architecture that housed banks and law offices and multiple department stores. By the late 1990s, the paper mill had shuttered and the workforce at Hathaway had been given notice of closure, casualties of global competition. The bottom fell out of the local economy. Stores along Main Street closed, some turning the lock and leaving everything inside as is.

The Greene Block + Studios is a “raw space” and a catalyst, where the design itself—a Main Street building reimagined with flexibility in mind—drives what the block can become.

— Teresa McKinney, founding Diamond Family Director of the Arts

Lunder Institute for American Art was established in 2017 through the generosity of Peter H. Lunder ’56, D.F.A. ’98 and Life Trustee Paula Crane Lunder, D.F.A. ’98, and conceived as a research and creative arm of the Colby Museum. With fellowships, workshops, symposia, and incubator grants, the institute supports innovative research and creative production by inviting visiting artists, scholars, and museum professionals to engage across disciplines with Colby faculty and students, the College’s network of institutional partners, leading experts, and other creative collaborators.

The revitalization of Waterville has involved both rehabilitation and new construction. The Levine’s building and an adjacent one, previously home to Camden National Bank, were demolished and replaced by the Lockwood Hotel and the Front & Main restaurant, both of which have been positively reviewed in the national press, including Travel + Leisure. Developed by Colby and managed by Charlestowne Hotels, the modern $26-million hotel opened to the public in August 2022 with 53 guest rooms after serving as student housing through the early pandemic.

The guest rooms are decorated with muted greens and blues, slate tile bathroom floors, and large-scale photographs of Maine landscapes by photographer Tanja Hollander. The lobby is bookended by stone fireplaces and hung with works by Maine artist Bernard Langlais. Historic photos of the former Levine’s store hang inside a conference room, in homage to founders and brothers Lewis “Ludy” Levine, Class of 1921, and Percy “Pacy” Levine, Class of 1927, and the people who worked there.

Across the street, what is now the Greene Block + Studios was thought to be a teardown, but Paul Ureneck, Colby’s assistant vice president for real estate development and operations, found a structural engineer who believed it could be saved and reinforced. Its façade was preserved, with the street-level windows swapped out for garage doors that can be lifted during events to welcome people in.

Diamond Family Director of the Arts, made possible by the support of the Diamond family—Trustee Robert E. Diamond ’73, P’12, Jennifer Diamond P’12, and Charles Diamond ’12—connects and integrates the work of Colby’s academic departments, as well as the Lunder Institute for American Art, the Colby College Museum of Art, the Center for the Arts and Humanities, the planned Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts, and the Paul J. Schupf Art Center in downtown Waterville. Teresa D. McKinney is the founding director.

Built with a gift from Peter H. Lunder ’56, D.F.A. ’98 and Life Trustee Paula Crane Lunder, D.F.A. ’98, the Greene Block + Studios also is home to the Lunder Institute for American Art—whose resident artists, scholars, and fellows fill the building’s working studios with creative energy—and has an open two-story space and nooks for meetings and collaboration throughout.

A major focus has been connecting with educators in the Waterville school system and in adult education, introducing them to artists and faculty, and providing a place for conversations about what would enrich their own programs, said Teresa McKinney, the founding Diamond Family Director of the Arts, a position funded for the purpose of promoting the arts at Colby and in the community.

McKinney talks about the Greene Block, which hosted more than 90 programs last year, as a “raw space” and a catalyst, a place where the design itself—a Main Street building reimagined with flexibility in mind—drives what the block can become.

Evening event at Greene Block + Studios full of people

Above: The jazz musician Kafari performs at the Greene Block + Studios as the sign of the Lockwood Hotel is reflected in the glass. In addition to hosting concerts, festivals, and community events, the Greene Block + Studios is home to the Lunder Institute for American Art.

Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons, home to 200 students, faculty, and staff, opened in fall 2018 and was the first major development project by Colby in downtown Waterville. The $25-million project was paid for with a gift from the Bill and Joan Alfond Foundation. The residents have infused the city with energy and economic activity, and Colby students who live there serve and support a variety of business, civic, and community organizations.

Allure of downtown living

If Greene had to point to one project that has made the biggest difference in the relationship between Colby and the city, it would be the living-and-learning community for 200 Colby students housed in the Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons, a $25.5-million project completed in 2018 at 150 Main St.

Supported by a gift from the Bill and Joan Alfond Foundation, Alfond Commons provides a home for students and a meeting space for the community. The Chace Community Forum, a 3,800-square-foot space on the first floor, serves as an events space for creating and cultivating dialogue, including community meetings. More than 10,000 people attended events in its first three years.

Community engagement sits at the heart of Alfond Commons. When sophomores and juniors apply for a sought-after downtown apartment, they must include a detailed plan for their civic engagement work in the greater Waterville area and participate in a civic reflection curriculum. That student experience gives Colby graduates a deeper understanding of the obligations that both institutions and individuals have to their community, Greene said.

“We’re not leaving these organizations high and dry when we graduate.”

— Nick Albani ’25, on his volunteer work

To meet its community engagement goals, Colby established the Office of Civic Engagement in 2018 and hired Elizabeth Jabar as the inaugural Lawry Family Director of Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships. Among her roles is creating infrastructure to develop sustained relationships between nonprofit and community organizations in greater Waterville and the College.

Chace Community Forum, a 3,800-square-foot space on the first floor of the Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons, is a communal events space for creating and cultivating dialogue and relationship-building among community members. The public gathering space in the heart of downtown Waterville was made possible through the funding of Malcolm Chace ’90.

A year later, the Office of Civic Engagement established the O’Hanian-Szostak Fellowship to provide funding for students to pursue civically engaged, self-directed projects. To date, 21 students have received funding through the fellowship. Overall, Colby has expanded community partnerships by 65 percent, with students working with more than 80 organizations, and since 2019 students have provided 34,500 hours of service time and worked with more than 1,100 grade-school students through the Colby Cares About Kids community service program.

Last fall, Spin Blazak ’25 and Nick Albani ’25 started volunteering on Mondays with the Waterville Food Bank, through Pulver Family Professor of Jewish Studies David Freidenreich’s civic engagement course Faith, Class and Community. They took deliveries and organized food for distribution.

They returned through an independent study this spring, this time working with the food bank’s volunteer coordinator to identify discrete projects that the organization needs help with, such as building a social media presence and improving the inventory tracking system.

Blazak and Albani drafted a plan to fund a student-liaison position, someone who would recruit other volunteers to complete the food bank’s projects, based on their skill sets and on an ongoing basis. Then Albani said, “We’re not leaving these organizations high and dry when we graduate.”

O’Hanian-Szostak Fellows for Civic Leadership, Colby’s first fund specifically for select student leaders with a significant commitment to civic responsibility, is made possible through the generosity of Trustee Emerita Anne O’Hanian Szostak ’72 and Michael J. Szostak ’72. Through the program, up to 10 Colby students work in partnership each semester with local organizations and a faculty advisor to begin developing real-world solutions for specific community challenges.

A downtown for all

The Paul J. Schupf Art Center, which opened at 93 Main St. in December, embodies the spirit of cooperation at play throughout downtown. In addition to providing the Colby College Museum of Art with a long-desired downtown display space, Schupf Arts—named after the late Trustee Emeritus Paul J. Schupf, LL.D. ’06—united the Maine Film Center, the gallery and studio space of what was Common Street Arts, and the Waterville Opera House under the umbrella of Waterville Creates.

The building has three modern theaters, a concession stand that sells beer and wine and popcorn with real butter, Ticonic Gallery and clay studios, and a slick rehearsal space that replicates the Opera House stage. The inside of the two-story illuminated pavilion, dubbed The Hub, represents the convergence of the many groups that use the downtown arts center.

Above: Sandra Bernal Heredia, visiting assistant professor of Spanish, leads students and community members in the course Baila in the Community at the Chace Community Forum, a public gathering space in Alfond Commons.

Josh Veilleux, patron services assistant at Waterville Creates, helps Heidi, Ollie, and Lilly Wheeler of Waterville make sock puppets in The Hub of the Paul J. Schupf Art Center.

Above: Josh Veilleux, patron services assistant at Waterville Creates, helps Heidi, Ollie, and Lilly Wheeler of Waterville make sock puppets in The Hub of the Paul J. Schupf Art Center.

Above: Jillian Dowling ’24 carries a box of frozen meat while volunteering with the Winslow Community Cupboard.

Plus, there’s Colby’s Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art, showcasing work from the Colby Museum’s permanent collection and commissioned exhibitions. Through July 31, the gallery is showing the work of Ashley Bryan and Paula Wilson in the exhibition Take the World Into Your Arms.

Lawry Family Director of Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships, an endowed position established with a gift by Trustee Emeritus Seth Lawry and Cynthia Lawry, allows Colby to elevate its civic engagement work that is rooted in the mission of the Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons. Elizabeth Jabar, dean of civic and community engagement, is the inaugural director.

The $18-million Schupf Arts Center was paid for, in part, with a $6-million grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation and $1 million raised by Waterville Creates, but it was built on years of service from people who created and nurtured its founding organizations and made space for the arts in Waterville, often on a shoestring budget.

Colby’s investment has helped fill long-standing vacancies and spur ongoing beautification efforts across downtown, said Shannon Haines, president and CEO of Waterville Creates. As the former director of Waterville Main Street, she worked to recruit businesses and promote those already downtown. Haines dreamed in particular of saving 173 Main St. and showed it regularly to would-be developers. Built as the home for Waterville Savings Bank in 1902 with a gray brick and limestone exterior and an arched entryway, the building had been dark for years. It needed so much work that there was no way to create a return on investment, Haines said.

But Colby’s math was different.

Robin Samalus-Getchell in her shop creating flower arrangement

Above: Robin Samalus-Getchell creates a floral arrangement at her shop, the Robin’s Nest, in downtown Waterville.

Paul J. Schupf Art Center, Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art, and “The Hub” opened in December 2022 as a center for visual and performing arts, film, and arts education. Developed in partnership with Colby and Waterville Creates, the $18-million Schupf Arts adds to the cultural life of the city and helps drive economic activity throughout the region. It includes the Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art, made possible with a gift from Dana L. Schmaltz and Kate Enroth, and is named in honor of the late Trustee Emeritus Paul J. Schupf, LL.D. ’06, a longtime supporter of Colby’s art and academic initiatives. The interior, illuminated pavilion is named in honor of donor Mark W. Hubbert ’79 and symbolizes the convergence and connection among the many groups that use the arts center.

Colby recruited Portland Pie Company to take over a street-level space and a technology company, which became part of CGI Group, to occupy upper offices.

Private investments have added to the energy, with new businesses and restaurants opening across downtown, including the Proper Pig, Opa, Sunrise Bagel, Wild Clover Cafe and Market, and others. The redevelopment has garnered attention, with features in the Boston Globe and New York Times, and has helped with fundraising with alumni who want to see the community they knew as either thriving or being lifted up again.

And, Greene said, it dramatically altered faculty and staff recruitment. Job candidates “want to be at a place where the mission is deeply connected to the community,” he said. “I appreciate that because I want to be at places like that, too.”

Robin Samalus-Getchell, who grew up in the area, was drawn back to Waterville because of the changes. She left a corporate career to open Robin’s Nest flower shop in a tiny space in the redeveloped Hathaway Creative Center in 2018, fulfilling a childhood dream. Last year Samalus-Getchell moved into a larger space at 173 Main St., the former home of Judy’s hair salon, where a row of wigs had sat in the storefront window long after the business was closed, slowly fading in the afternoon sun.

Today, the doors to the old bank vault sit open in the back of the shop, covered in an intricate gold leaf motif. That craftsmanship wouldn’t have been seen by most bank customers. Now it sits on display, a perfect fit.

“This was where I was meant to be,” Samalus-Getchell said.

This summer, she’s planning a special tribute to Judy’s: heads full of flowers in the Main Street windows.

"The Hub" in the Paul J. Schupf Art Center filled with students

Above: The inside of the illuminated pavilion of the Paul J. Schupf Art Center is dubbed The Hub.

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