Image courtesy of EMBARC

A private developer proposing a large mixed-use development next to downtown Dover got community leaders’ blessing for a concept plan that will guide their final submittals this summer. 

Boston-based Cathartes, which was picked by city officials to develop a 23-acre riverfront parcel of city-owned land, formerly the city’s wastewater treatment plant, as a retail-and-residential destination.  

The development team received the unanimous support of Dover’s Cocheco Waterfront Development Advisory Committee on Jan. 19 for a plan featuring four apartment buildings with a total of 350 units, a 40-unit condominium building and 23 townhomes. The project will also include 30,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space fronting on the riverfront.  

The new concept plan reorients the project away from a “Main Street”-type of design echoing other parts of downtown Dover that Cathartes presented in 2019, and towards a design focused on the water. 

Following substantial public input over the course of 2020, the development team chose to include 518 parking spaces, including 359 surface units, to accommodate both residents and visitors. 

The project will also include a riverfront park with a pavilion to compliment an existing dock used by kayakers and canoers on the Cocheco River. 

Following the advisory committee’s approval, Cathartes representatives said, they will begin preparation of detailed design documents and file permitting applications for the site this summer. 

Dover has been a focus of housing development in recent years, with 1,234 new homes built in the city from 2010 to 2019, according to Foster’s Daily Democrat, putting it in the top 10 communities statewide and ahead of nearby Portsmouth.