Orono Downtown Revival Push Starts with Defining 'Downtown'
Before Orono's new resident committee can revive downtown, it first has to agree on what counts as downtown at all.
A newly formed group of Orono residents is drafting ideas for reviving the town's downtown, the Bangor Daily News reported. The Heart of Orono Maine committee, which includes Town Councilor John Quinn, was created in 2026 to look at ways to grow downtown population, foot traffic and the number of businesses there.
The committee's work follows Orono's 2025 comprehensive plan, which calls for added housing and workforce growth over the next decade and points to downtown as a target area for new residential and commercial space. Planning and Economic Development Manager EJ Roach proposed forming the committee in January as a first step toward a broader revisioning plan, ahead of hiring an outside consultant.
Six members attended the committee's first meeting on April 28, where they floated early concepts such as new decor to make downtown more distinctive, without settling on specific projects. Quinn said the group intends to use the months before fall to settle on a working definition of what counts as Orono's downtown.
"We are looking at from now until fall to really develop some working definitions around what our downtown even is," Quinn said, according to the newspaper. Members plan to tour the downtown area and collect resident feedback before narrowing their focus in future meetings.
This story was first reported by Bangor Daily News.
