By Amanda Estes
Staff Writer
Construction is underway at 515 Ocean House Road in Cape Elizabeth, making way for a new two-story residential and office condominium building.
Located beside Rudy’s of the Cape diner, the Kettle Cove Condominiums will offer roughly 4,300-square-feet of office space on the first floor and four, 1,000 square foot two-bedroom units on the second floor.
The project received planning board approval in 2005, when local developer Joel Fitzpatrick, who is currently seeking approval for a residential condominium development on Eastman Road, presented the development as the Two Lights Professional Center.
According to planning board minutes from June 2005, abutter Gail Schmader said the project would have a significant impact on her property. She wanted to verify the height of a stockade fence around the property’s solid waste container and asked that an existing tree be saved as a buffer.
Fitzpatrick agreed to add street trees along Davis Point Lane, which will connect to the development, and said he would replace the existing tree should it die during excavation, according to the notes. Conditions of approval also included sewer easements to allow for future extensions and pedestrian easements to provide future access to Great Pond.
Developer Andrew Ingalls, who owns Ingalls Commercial Brokerage in South Portland, said the building’s first floor will be service retail oriented.
Ingalls is also behind a four-story office condominium at 100 Waterman Drive in South Portland’s Knightville neighborhood. He doesn’t have any buyers yet, but Ingalls said, “We don’t need to sell it to build it which is a big advantage in terms of marketing because when people see it there much more likely to be interested in it than if they see it on paper.”
“We’ve got six months to build it,” he added. Ingalls has said he is targeting service retail businesses and possibly a restaurant for the 31,668-square-foot building.
Ingalls said he had already heard from an architect who is interested in an office at the Cape Elizabeth location and he envisions it to be an ideal spot for accountants, dentists and similar businesses.
“There’s an awful lot of very talented people who work out of their homes in Cape Elizabeth,” Ingalls said. “It would be great for them to get out of the house, but they don’t want to spend too much to do it and they don’t want to leave Cape Elizabeth.”     
The first floor, which can be subdivided into two 2,150-square-foot units will cost interested buyers $175 per square foot while the residential units cost roughly $235,000.
Fitzpatrick said they are not gearing the units toward a specific market, but he said they would be probably be more attractive to professional couples or single parents.
Ingalls said the building will be a good neighbor because it will be high quality with a shingle style exterior and lots of glass, letting in natural light.
Town Planner Maureen O’Meara said she has heard the building’s residential component seems to be very popular with the public.
“We have been for some time now promoting a concept of a mixed use building,” she said. “We had two buildings actually approved using that concept in the town center, but neither or those were actually built.”
Fitzpatrick said crews are currently laying down the foundation and he expects the building to be finished this spring.