A design plan provided for the 110-unit project at the end of Dana Street. Contributed/City of Westbrook

A view of the Presumpscot River as seen from the end of Dana Street in Westbrook. Robert Lowell/Community Reporter

A landscape scar will be transformed into a star project in downtown Westbrook and the city’s Mayor David Morse is pretty enthused.

Quaker Lane Associates, of West Hartford, Connecticut, is planning to construct a 110-unit residential rental complex overlooking the Presumpscot River at the end of Dana Street.

“I’m excited about a multitude of public benefits that the development and revitalization of this long-blighted downtown parcel would bring,” Morse said in an email April 21.

Jennie Franceschi, Westbrook’s director of Planning and Code Enforcement, said this week the city doesn’t have a schedule but said construction would likely start this fall. The project received Planning Board approval in mid April.

The project will be on the banks of the Presumpscot River and near its falls in a historically significant section of Westbrook that was known as Saccarappa to the Wabanaki Native American people who originally inhabited the area.

Franceschi said the city hasn’t been provided yet with a name for the project.

Attempts to reach developer Matthew Welter, principal and founder of Quaker Lane Associates, were unsuccessful.

The complex will have a trio of five- and six-story connected buildings with river views containing 76 one-bedroom units; 25 with two bedrooms; and nine studio apartments, according to information provided during the approval process. Project features will include a courtyard plus a restaurant with an outside seating area. The buildings’ street floors will be covered with green colored, stained boards and battens with exterior metal panels on upper floors.

“There are 85 parking spaces on the premise,” Franceschi said.

The front door of the former American Journal building. The building is set to be razed to make way for a 110-unit residential complex on Dana Street in Westbrook. Robert Lowell/Community Reporter

The project calls for an extension westward of the city’s downtown river walk at no cost to Westbrook taxpayers, Morse said.

“This furthers the city’s ongoing work to enhance pedestrian connectivity and access to the Presumpscot River,” Morse said.

The complex will be built at the end of Dana Street and on a 3.4-acre parcel at 921 Main St., previously an industrial area that housed a former paper mill-owned power generating plant. The complex’s footprint includes 4 and 7 Dana St. with a building that once served as the former American Journal offices and production plant. Vacant for more than two decades, the building will be demolished.

Dana Street will become a landscaped entrance into the development and will cease as a city-owned street, but the city will retain public access as well as a utility easement.

In an email April 18, Welter said he would make sure “this project is a good one.”

Morse welcomes the much-needed new housing. He said the complex creates new jobs in its commercial space and “new customers for our established downtown businesses.”

The site is on the opposite side of Main Street from the Vertical Harvest building bordered by William Clarke Drive, Vertical Way and Mechanic Street. The city’s new, four-story downtown parking garage with 400 free spaces opened last year on Vertical Way.