Community Spotlight: Belfast

Front Street Shipyard along Harbor Walk

The city of Belfast (pop. 6,660) has successfully combined funds from a variety of sources over the past five years to enhance the sustainability of its downtown, making it more accessible and allowing the expansion of private sector jobs. Belfast, the county seat for Waldo County, has since 2011 successfully leveraged three allocations of HUD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds from the state of Maine with over $4,000,000 in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Highway Administration, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and others to create jobs, remediate environmental issues and enhance the walkability of its downtown.

Belfast's very scenic, accessible and downtown-adjacent Harbor Walk extends more than a 1/2 mile as it winds through a working waterfront, past shops and restaurants. The Walk connects to a footbridge which crosses the Passagassawakeag (Passy) River. Soon it will connect to the Passy Rail Trail, currently under construction. In addition, forty-four jobs were created by the Front Street Shipyard after the Shipyard matched $200,000 in CDBG funds from the City to purchase additional equipment.

Belfast successfully utilized three programs within the State of Maine's CDBG Program: Community Enterprise, Economic Development and Downtown Revitalization; two programs within the EPA: Brownfields Assessment and Brownfields Cleanup; and one program from DOT Federal Highway: Maine DOT Sustainable Communities. HUD, EPA and DOT and the three founding members of the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities (PSC) (www.sustainablecommunities.gov).

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