Local merchants who attended a recent Boothbay Harbor planning board meeting are in support of a downtown project, but have questions and concerns about when the work will be done.

Rahul Anand of Connecticut has purchased the former Windjammer shop located at 8 Wharf Street in Boothbay Harbor. He plans to demolish the current building, then rebuild and expand the size of live-able area by 30 percent.

Current plans call for a large retail space on the first floor, with dual entrances in the front and back (the back will be handicapped accessible). On the second story will be a one-bedroom apartment (with a possible small second bedroom) and a studio apartment with a balcony. Both apartments will have access to a small rooftop deck area.

Anand has hired Knickerbocker Group to design the building. At the May 14 planning board meeting, Adam Maltese and Danielle Betts of Knickerbocker presented the plan for the building.

The new building will match the others on the block in height, and the wooden deck will be replaced with concrete and stone. The deck will be slightly narrower, allowing greater street access, with a private entrance to the apartments located on the sidewalk before the main entrance. The front half of the building will have a brick facade, while the rear half will be covered with clapboard or shingle.

“This design creates a more pedestrian-friendly access,” Maltese said. “And we are planning to make the entrance much more inviting.”

Since there is no feasible way to make the front entrance handicapped accessible, a second entrance will be created where the rear door is. Design plans call for slightly rotating the wall where the back door is, so it will face the parking lot located behind The Hutch instead of the street as it does currently. A balcony over the studio apartment will create a shield during rain/snow.

The plan has a loose construction schedule, showing demolition of the building to begin and end sometime in October 2014. The foundation will be in by December, with the frame being built during January, February, and March of 2015. The exterior should be complete by April 1, and which point the interior work will start. The concern from local store owners came mostly from the project’s start date in October.

“I applaud the project, but any construction on the By-Way will impact business on the pier,” said Ralph Smith, owner of Mine Oyster and McSeagull’s. “October is a good month for us and I can't afford to lose business that month. If the project ran longer, even to the end of May, that would be OK.”

“The demolition will be noisy and dusty, no matter what,” said Pat Carmoli, owner of Downeast Candies. “We are directly across from this and our business is through a small window with customers outside. Any construction or destruction before Columbus Day will seriously impact us.”

“It's unacceptable,” said Alex Logan, owner of the buildings where the Custom House and Christmas Magic are located. “Early Bird is an important sale and we can't lose out.”

“I'm open practically year-round,” said Clif Cane, owner of The Cannery. “I'm right across from this project as well, and it will affect me a great deal. It would have been nice if someone had approached me about this before it was planned, as a neighbor. But no one did.”

After listening to everyone, the planning board members said they could not yet approve the plan. They requested a more detailed drawing of the rooftop deck to ensure the expanision met with municipal bylaws (specifically the limit of 30 percent expansion), and also requested a more specific construction plan so the timing could be nailed down. They also requested a plan to ensure safe snow removal during construction, since the majority of construction will be taking place in the winter months. For now, the application is tabled. The Planning Board will conduct a Public Hearing and on-site review on Thursday, May 29 on site (8 Wharf Street) at 5 p.m. The next official meeting takes place on Wednesday, June 11 at 6 p.m. at the Boothbay Harbor Town Office.

The planning board also approved three applications, all for new businesses in town. These included a change-of-use for TidePools, owned by Jeff Curtis, and the currently unnamed ceramics studio at 93 Townsend Avenue, owned and operated by Alison Evans and her husband, Chris Fritz, of Fritzy Enterprises. They also approved a restaurant to go into the old Moosehead Coffee location, owned by Chris Graham and his fiancee, Michele Green, which will be a brick-oven pizzeria called “Mel's Place.”

After the meeting, planning board member John Hochstein expressed how pleased he is that so many new business were opening up in the area.

“It's a welcome change,” he said.