As the Press Herald reported, Cory King runs the Bath-Brunswick-Topsham Regional Chamber of Commerce and described a chamber event that should have taken him five minutes to reach. Instead, driving from the Topsham Fair Mall to Cook's Corner in Brunswick during last fall's bridge closure, it took him 40 minutes. That is not a rounding error. That is the entire commute most people picture when they imagine living on one side of the Androscoggin River and working, shopping, or seeing a doctor on the other.
For nearly a decade, that kind of detour was not a one-time inconvenience. It was baked into daily life for anyone crossing between Topsham and Brunswick on the old Frank J. Wood Bridge, and it is the piece of the story that most price comparisons between these two towns leave out entirely.
A Bridge That Couldn't Carry Everything
The Frank J. Wood Bridge, known locally as the Green Bridge, opened in 1932 and carried Route 201 traffic between Topsham's Main Street and Brunswick's Maine Street for most of a century. By 2016, the Maine Department of Transportation had posted a 25-ton weight limit on it and banned school buses, fire engines, and most trucks from crossing. That restriction did not lift when the replacement project was announced. It stayed in place through years of environmental review and a federal lawsuit filed by historic preservation groups, meaning the truck ban and weight limit were the reality on the ground for the better part of a decade before construction on a new span even began.
Then, in September 2025, MaineDOT closed the old bridge to northbound traffic entirely for 89 days while the new structure was finished, rerouting drivers through the Topsham Bypass and Route 196. That is the closure King was navigating when his five-minute drive became a 40-minute one. Jeremy Kratzer, who owns Dutchman's Bagels at Fort Andross just off the Brunswick side of the bridge, told the Press Herald his shop was "a bit slower" during the closure even as the calendar shifted into the usual seasonal quiet of late fall.
None of this is ancient history. The new bridge opened to traffic on December 12, 2025, after a brief false start in November when it had to close again for final grading and paving. The $49.9 million project, built by Reed & Reed of Woolwich, is expected to be fully complete by late 2026, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony still on MaineDOT's calendar for later this year.
Here is what that means in plain terms: the summer of 2026, the one buyers are shopping in right now, is the first full buying season in years where the crossing between Topsham and Brunswick has not carried a decade-old weight restriction, a lawsuit-delayed timeline, or a three-month detour. That is not a footnote. It is the kind of structural change that should make a buyer question any price gap between these two towns that was set while the bridge was still a liability.
What the New Bridge Actually Fixes
The replacement span sits on a curved upstream alignment just above the old bridge's footprint, near the Pejepscot Falls, and it was designed with input from a local advisory committee made up of Topsham and Brunswick residents. Compared to the bridge it replaced, it includes:
- Sidewalks running the full length on both sides, rather than the pinch points pedestrians and cyclists dealt with before
- Wider shoulders on both sides for vehicle traffic
- Pedestrian viewing bump-outs and small parks on both ends, framing the Pejepscot Falls views that the old truss structure partially blocked
- A design intended to last at least 100 years, meaning this is not a bridge likely to face another weight-limit era anytime soon
The Press Herald quoted King saying the new bridge already "feels like it's always been there." That is a notable thing to hear about a crossing that spent years under legal challenge and a truck ban.
What the Two Towns Actually Cost Right Now
Bridge friction is only half the picture. The other half is what buyers actually pay to live on either side of the river, and this happens to be an unusually good year to look at that comparison honestly.
Topsham's town assessor lists a tax rate of $12.80 per $1,000 of assessed value for the fiscal year running July 2025 through June 2026. Brunswick's rate for the same fiscal year is $13.22 per $1,000, and Brunswick's assessing office notes this was a revaluation year, with properties certified at a 100% ratio to market value. That detail matters more than it sounds like it should. A mill rate on its own tells you almost nothing unless you know what percentage of market value the town is assessing against. A town that assesses homes at 60% of market value and charges a higher mill rate can still produce a lower actual tax bill than a town assessing at 100% with a lower rate. Brunswick's recent revaluation means its $13.22 rate is measured against full market value this cycle, which makes it a cleaner number to trust at face value than mill rates typically are in Maine. Topsham's assessment ratio was not something this research turned up, which is itself worth asking a buyer's agent or the town assessor before treating the $12.80 figure as directly comparable.
On price, the gap between the towns is real and worth naming plainly. Zillow's home value index put Topsham's average home value at $479,570 as of the end of June 2026. On the closed-sale side, Homes.com's tracking has put Topsham's median sale price at $450,000, down 4% from a year earlier. Brunswick, by contrast, has been closing well above the statewide median. Resideline's tracking of closed sales over the six months leading into its summer 2026 report put Brunswick's median closing price at $507,000, a level that puts it in the same tier as other Cumberland County towns that sit above the state average.
That is a gap of roughly $30,000 to $60,000 depending on which figures you compare, and it has existed for years. The question this bridge story raises is whether that gap has partly been a discount for the inconvenience of living on the Topsham side of a river crossing that, until recently, came with a truck ban, a weight limit, and the real possibility of a multi-month detour. If commute friction was doing some of that pricing work, a bridge designed to last a century without those restrictions is the kind of change that quietly resets the calculation, even if it takes a full buying cycle or two to show up in closed-sale data.
What This Means If You're Choosing a Side of the River
If you have been comparing Topsham to Brunswick on price alone, this is the year to ask a different question: how much of that price gap was ever about the towns themselves, and how much was about the bridge connecting them? A buyer who ruled out Topsham a few years ago because a routine errand into Brunswick carried real uncertainty was making a reasonable call at the time. That same reasoning holds a lot less weight now that the crossing has sidewalks on both sides, wider shoulders, and a hundred-year design life.
The final piece of construction, including whatever happens with the old bridge structure itself, is not finished until late 2026, so there is still some cleanup ahead before the story is fully closed. But the daily commute problem, the one that actually shaped how people thought about living on one side of the river versus the other, has already been solved.
A Few Questions Worth Asking
Is the old bridge gone yet? Not entirely. As of the most recent reporting, MaineDOT had not confirmed a demolition timeline for the original 1932 structure, though a nonprofit called Brunswick Public Art has proposed using recycled steel from it for a sculpture near the new bridge's entrance. The new span has been open and fully functional since December 2025 regardless of what happens to the old one.
Does a lower mill rate always mean a lower tax bill? No. Mill rate alone only tells part of the story. What matters is the mill rate combined with the town's assessment ratio, the percentage of market value your home is actually assessed at. Brunswick's rate this year reflects a full revaluation to 100% of market value, which makes it a relatively trustworthy number to compare against. Always confirm the current assessment ratio with the specific town assessor before assuming a lower posted rate means a lower bill.
If you are trying to figure out what a specific address on either side of the Androscoggin actually costs to own, that math depends on more than a headline number, and it is exactly the kind of question worth walking through with someone who tracks both towns closely. Paul Clark at Maine House Hunter can help you run the real comparison, bridge and all.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
