RAYMOND – If all goes to plan, summer residents will get a big shock when they drive by the Raymond Shopping Center on Route 302.

Kevin Gagnon, owner of shopping centers in Naples, Standish and Gorham, recently purchased the Raymond Shopping Center from fellow Raymond resident Tony Accousti. Gagnon is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to revamp the fac?ade, roofline and overall appearance of the strip mall.

By March or April 2013, Gagnon hopes to have all the structural and parking lot improvements complete, just in time for the busy summertime tourist season.

“It should be a big difference, at least that’s what we’re hoping for,” the 52-year-old nearly lifelong resident of Raymond said.

While there are several empty storefronts, and the center lost anchor Community Pharmacies several years ago, the plaza is a mainstay with Raymond shoppers. A U.S. post office, which just signed another five-year lease, a Family Dollar store, a cell phone dealership, meat market and hair stylist are a few of the tenants.

Accousti, the former owner, bought the shopping center about 30 years ago, and has worked to keep it in good working condition, namely focusing on improvements to its internal systems.

Gagnon and Accousti have also had a long working relationship. According to Accousti’s son Mark, who owns Speedy Stop next to the shopping center, Accousti bought a struggling grocery store at the Raymond Shopping Center in 1982, changed its name to Tony’s Foodland, and then purchased the entire shopping center shortly thereafter. Gagnon, aiming to get started in a career in commercial real estate, approached Accousti in the mid-1980s about his plan to build a shopping center in Naples, where Gagnon invited Accousti to open another Tony’s Foodland. The two became business partners and remain friends even after Accousti, who’s now retired, sold his share of the Naples Shopping Center to Gagnon in 2006.

“I took Tony out to breakfast, and as we were leaving, I slapped him on the back and said, ‘Tony, when are you going to sell me that shopping center?’ And that’s literally how it came about,” Gagnon said last week.

Mark Accousti, speaking on behalf of his father, said Gagnon’s plans should spark renewed interest in the shopping center.

“I think it’s great,” he said. “It puts everybody in a better position, myself included. I’ve got my own business to worry about, and I can devote more time to it. And it’s going to be great for the whole center.”

Gagnon, who as a teen worked at Speedy Stop when it was called Gibb’s gas station, credits the Accoustis, both Tony and Mark, who has served as manager for the shopping center, with keeping the infrastructure of the center in good shape. However, he says, the exterior has left much to be desired, so that’s where Gagnon plans to devote his energy.

“They did do a lot of work over the years on the center but you can’t see it from the road,” Gagnon said. “For instance they upgraded the plumbing, the electrical, the HVAC systems, which is all very costly. They did do many improvements to the center, but none of it to breath life into the center that would be attractive to the consumers.”

Gagnon is working with architect Bill Bridges, also a Raymond resident, who designed and oversaw the dramatic improvements last winter to the Naples Shopping Center. Bridges also designed recent upgrades to the Colonial Marketplace in Standish and the Gorham Village Mall, two other properties Gagnon owns.

“In Naples, which we just finished up in April, we went with a log theme,” Gagnon said. “With Raymond I’m going to go more with a post-and-beam. I want to try and get a cottage-y look to it.”

Gagnon’s aim with the improvements is to draw customers for existing tenants and make the center more attractive to new tenants.

“You have to attract good tenants, because those tenants feed off each other and the mix is critical to be successful. The problem with Raymond is it’s old and tired, really nothing has been done to it over the years, so we really need to change the identity of the center,” Gagnon said. “The way you change the identity is to give it a whole new look, and that look, literally, starts at Route 302 when you turn in. So we’ll redo everything.”

Transforming a strip mall with a flat roof can be difficult, Gagnon and Bridges said. They aim to “add mass” to the entire structure so it commands a more significant presence from the road.

“You’ll notice the shopping center itself is very busy with posts every 10 feet. We’re reengineering the fac?ade and the roof structure and mansard so we can eliminate every other post. And the remaining posts, which will be approximately 20 feet apart, will be much larger, they’ll have big stone bases,” Gagnon said. “The mansard roof will have a standing seam metal roof on it, and above that we’re going to build a post and beam parapet with very large timbers. It adds mass, and each one is an architectural feature that catches the eye.”

Gagnon, who said brick siding would be replaced with fieldstone, said the end-result will be beautiful and more practical for shoppers. Bridges has designed a new canopied walkway from one end of the center to the other. Now, he said, shoppers have no cover in front of Family Dollar located in the middle of the center.

Bridges, who has spent 40 years in the construction business, spent summers in Raymond as a boy and moved to town 10 years ago. With strong ties to the community, he’s taking great pride in the remodeling of the center.

“Being in construction for 40 years, it’s just another project. However, the fact that it’s in my hometown, it means a lot,” Bridges said. “We have a lot at stake from the standpoint of our neighbors and/or our community, and it’s important for us to get this right. So we’re excited. I’m excited to be involved in the project from that perspective.”

Gagnon, who lives with his wife and children on Panther Pond, near where his parents moved in 1962 and where he grew up, is excited to overhaul the plaza since it will be a destination for year-round residents and summer visitors who don’t want to drive out of town to shop.

“Raymond is a great place to live, and a great place to raise a family,” Gagnon said. “So it’s important to get the right businesses that also meet the needs of the community. People don’t care for driving into Windham, especially as busy as it is during the summertime. It’s just the sheer fact of the traffic, and if they can cut that short by getting the majority of what they need right in the town they live in, it just makes it a lot more convenient.”

Gagnon – who also operates a Christian missionary organization, Shekinah Glory Island Ministries, that works to spread the gospel – said he’s met with all of the center’s tenants, and has had to dispel rumors that he wants to force them out. Instead, Gagnon said he wants to work with each tenant and focus on improving everyone’s business.

“The beauty of all this, even in the midst of the recession, of all the projects I own, I had one vacancy through the whole thing, so really it’s about relationships for me. It’s not about the money, it’s about the relationships with the tenants,” he said. “And, all of this, as much as we love it, it’s secondary to that for us. Projects like this subsidize our ministry, so it’s a blessing to us.”

Raymond Shopping Center’s new owner Kevin Gagnon, left, and architect Bill Bridges are planning to transform the center, seen in the background, during the winter. By summer, the exterior will feature post-and-beam construction with larger columns with stone bases and a metal roof.
According to design plans, the Raymond Shopping Center should look completely different by next summer.