LAEGC a bold experiment that worked…BIG!

All told, 1981 was an important year for launches.  NASA introduced the world to a re-usable means to access space, as wide-eyed Americans watched the space shuttle Columbia heave into the skies for the first time. IBM successfully launched what it called its “personal computer,” and the way the world conducted business would change forever.

Closer to home, big changes were coming as well. Lewiston-Auburn was in the midst of a radical transition, as the shoe and textile industries, which had been responsible for making L-A an economic powerhouse in decades past, were on life support. The mills that employed thousands of people and, in turn, were responsible for creating lively downtowns, multi-leveled housing, and a strong work ethic, were on their last leg.

As global competition increased, technology evolved, and college degrees drew young people away from factory jobs, two small cities in Maine couldn’t afford to go it alone. Late in 1980, community leaders from both Lewiston and Auburn discussed an innovative way to focus on economic development that was a bold experiment for its time. Lewiston Mayor Paul Dionne, Auburn Mayor Peter Whitmore, Lewiston City Administrator Lucien Gosselin, and Auburn City Manager Chip Morrison began exploring how to combine energies to attract new businesses to the community. It wouldn’t matter if the company relocated to Auburn or Lewiston, as long as it had a Twin Cities’ address.

Prior to that time, the Lewiston Development Corporation and the Lewiston Economic Growth Council took care of business retention and attraction on the Lewiston side of the river, while the Auburn Business Development Corporation focused on the Auburn side. Each group maintained its own loan pools, distinct marketing efforts and strategies.

A small but growing contingent began to think about the advantages of marketing a single economic area with the goal of creating new and better employment opportunities for the region. After all, collaboration wasn’t an entirely new concept. The Lewiston Auburn Railroad Company, consisting of members from both communities, successfully and efficiently managed the operation of a rail line that ran through both cities since 1872. The Airpark, an industrial park located near the Auburn – Lewiston Municipal Airport, was a joint venture created in the 1970s that went so far as establishing a revenue sharing formula between the municipalities.

Around 1980, in fact, the collaborative success of the Airpark influenced the decision to take the project to the next level. The cities worked to jointly create a spec building at the Airpark, received $4,000 in state funds for a joint marketing effort, and attempted to create a free trade zone.

From there, establishing a formal organization to cultivate more of these joint arrangements became a matter of when, not if. After months of negotiation, on Monday, December 15, 1980, at a special joint meeting of the Auburn and Lewiston city councils, a historic agreement was reached that involved a four-way partnership between the two cities, the LDC, and the ABDC. The agreement involved promoting Lewiston and Auburn as one economic area and sharing equally in the cost of administering the agency.

As a result of the newly created LAEGC, the Lewiston Growth Council was dissolved and its leader, John Turner, was named LAEGC’s first executive director. Ultimately, LAEGC paved the way for future collaborative agreements, but perhaps most importantly, it helped eliminate unhealthy competition between the cities.

The agency’s purpose was three-fold: to increase the tax base, increase local investment, and create good-paying jobs. This was accomplished primarily by helping existing businesses to expand and by attracting new businesses to locate to the Twin Cities. LAEGC offered its clients site location searches, technical assistance, gap financing, and marketing. It also provided community relations, public relations, and marketing for the community as a whole.

Early on, LAEGC was about more than loans and site searches. LAEGC provided a unified direction for economic growth, creating a collective development policy and protocol. Among its early tasks was to seek to diversify the economy of a community much too dependent on traditional manufacturing and textiles. Consider that in 1982, despite having weathered a national recession, about 125 manufacturers in Androscoggin County were still making more than $800 million worth of goods.

Through its history, LAEGC doggedly stood by two important notions. The first was that to attract worldclass companies, the community needed educated employees. The second, that a serious commitment to business attraction required an organized marketing strategy.

Development by degrees

In the early 1980s, some community leaders became convinced that to remain competitive, L-A needed and deserved to have its own campus of the University of Maine system. The issue became extremely divisive. Some university officials were wary of being able to support a campus so close to Portland, and had reservations as to whether enough interest existed locally.

Some local residents weren’t so sure they wanted a campus here. In a poll conducted by the Lewiston Daily Sun in 1984, a number of voters were undecided just days before voting on a bond issue to support the campus. The cost of establishing a Lewiston-Auburn campus was $6 million, with $2.1 million bonded by Lewiston, and $1 million from Auburn. The remainder would be paid for by the University of Maine System.

The referendum failed, as did a second one. Through the persistence of community leaders and organizations including LAEGC, LDC, and others — along with the enthusiastic support of Governor Joe Brennan — $2 million was set aside to establish a university campus. Although the Peck’s Building was considered as a potential site early on, the choice site was a former tennis facility on Westminster Street in the mid-1980s, where the campus grows today.

Selling L-A to the world

Meanwhile, LAEGC launched its first marketing program in 1981 by advertising in publications such as New England Business and Area Development magazines targeted at decision makers for business expansion. A few years later, with help from the now defunct Stern Associates, ads were created with the tagline, “The Other L-A. It’s in Maine.” By 1986, ads were running in Boston Magazine and New England Business, resulting in inquiries from as far away as New York and California.

Then came a much more focused and organized marketing campaign which appealed to outside businesses to consider relocating to L-A for its “excellent commercial and industrial sites, a large labor pool, top quality … educational facilities,” and more. 

In 1988, for the first time, L-A began an organized TV campaign on WCSH-6, purchased national advertising in publications such as Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report, and Sports Illustrated, and launched a campaign called “The Right Move.” The campaign featured successful L-A companies, using testimonials from company leaders stating why they felt the community was right for them.

The formative years: parks

During the mid 1980s, the Twin Cities experienced a shortage of available industrial land. To fulfill the need, LAEGC and its sister corporations continued developing industrial parks. The concept wasn’t new: LDC had bought 128 acres as early as 1957 to create the Lewiston Industrial Park. But the need seemed both urgent and potentially lucrative.

LAEGC also worked on a plan to acquire sites at the Airpark in 1986. One notable client was UPS, which began negotiations to acquire a site in 1988. They closed on the land in 1990 with a groundbreaking ceremony that spring.

Auburn was ripe for industrial park development. In 1985, for example, the Auburn Business Development Corporation supported the concept of an industrial park on Merrow Road. In 1988, the Kittyhawk Industrial Park was approved by the city council and dedicated in 1993. Spectrum Printing was the fist company to locate at the park, a quiet location conveniently located close to the turnpike. Other companies soon followed suit. The growth of industrial sites also had the added benefit of continued infrastructure improvements, such as road construction.

On Aug. 18, 1989, to take advantage of access to the Maine Turnpike and the existing Southpark, LDC held a groundbreaking ceremony for another park on Cottage Road in Lewiston. With 23 buildable lots on nearly 90 acres, the Turnpike Industrial Park would cost an estimated $2 million to create. The park was complete in 1990.

LAEGC started gaining statewide recognition for its model of collaboration and private/public partnerships. In 1990, the Maine Real Estate Development Association presented a Community Development Award to LAEGC “in recognition of its outstanding initiatives in encouraging and promoting real estate and economic development for the community.” Years later, Governor Angus King declared an Economic Development Day in Lewiston-Auburn, recognizing LAEGC for its hard work.

Start-ups

The 1980s and ‘90s were busy years for loan activity. LAEGC and its sister corporations helped a number of companies with low-interest loans. In 1990 alone, for example, LAEGC made nine loans to various L-A businesses.

One client was Thomas Moser. In the 1980s, Moser moved his furniture-making business to a three-story building on Riverside Drive. With a $60,000 loan, ABDC had helped finance 22 pieces of equipment the company needed. For the next seven years, sales grew 378 percent. By 1987, the company was ready for another expansion, this time to the Airpark. The company received $125,000 from both ABDC and LDC, which led to the creation of 26 new jobs.

The LAEGC helped a number of dynamic companies get their footing in L-A. R.F. Technologies, which located in South Park with the help of an LDC loan and site search efforts by LAEGC, was an emerging business in the field of high-power radio frequency apparatus. RF Tech designed and manufactured high-power radio frequency signals and microprocessor-based instruments and controls systems. Clients included the Department of Defense and Raytheon and commercial and research organizations.

Another success story can be found with Safe Handling, Inc., a facility which transfers bulk materials – including hazardous materials and chemicals for the paper industry and others — from rail container cars to trucks and vice versa. Safe Handling hinged its success on the viability of St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad and the creation of a transload intermodal facility.

A low-interest loan from ABDC was used for land acquisition, equipment, and working capital. Early on, Safe Handling won a contract from LePage Bakeries to handle several rail cars of flour a month. Lumber, bricks, chemicals, and other products followed, and Safe Handling became a huge success.

LAEGC helped Advantage Business Services (later Advantage Payroll) with site location assistance to a 30,000-square-foot building in Auburn. At the time, the company had 30 franchises across the country, with sales up 25 percent over the previous year. With 65 employees, the company was adding an average of one employee a month!

The early 90s were difficult for development anywhere, and that was certainly true in L-A. With manufacturing facilities continuing to fail, downtown businesses closing, and unemployment hovering at or near 9 percent, business retention – let alone business attraction – was a discouraging slog.

Still, LAEGC kept busy. In the mid ‘90s, the Growth Council worked with Tambrands to expand its facilities on Hotel Road following consolidations at various manufacturing facilities in the northeast. It was the beginning of what would be tens of millions of dollars in investments made at the facility, as Procter & Gamble became Tambrands’ parent company. Eventually, P & G made the Auburn location its largest manufacturer of tampons in North America, and the major manufacturer of its Pearl product.

Bates Mill Complexity

LAEGC became intricately involved in helping to revitalize and market the Bates Mill Complex. It was instrumental in helping to design a master plan, including a concept for creating a convention center as early as 1997.

During the 1990s, keeping the Bates Mill Complex viable became a contentious issue and a very expensive thorn in the side of Lewiston city officials, who were paying to maintain a largely empty facility. The complex had antiquated heating and electrical systems, needed roof and infrastructure repairs, and lacked adequate parking. Bates of Maine was operating as a shadow of its former self, occupying hardly more than several thousand feet making bedspreads.

 Although some establishments were doing well at the mill — Peoples Bank, DaVinci’s Eatery, and Floor Systems, to name a few – other operations were struggling. The Movie Mill, which operated second-run movies in a corner of the mill and offered food and drink served in comfy seats, folded less than two years after it opened. The Creative Photographic Arts Center of Maine, a photography school, operated at a loss, eventually closing its doors for good in 2003.

The city contracted with developer Tom Platz in 1996 to create a master plan for the future of the mill. Platz was interested in purchasing and redeveloping parts of the mill complex, but city officials and citizens couldn’t agree if that was the right strategy and at what cost.

In 1998, in a non-binding referendum, and again in 1999, voters had to choose one of three options regarding mill development: to do nothing, and let the mill deteriorate; destroy the mill, impractical given the historic significance and cost of demolition; or continue to develop and maintain the mill, seeking to sell it and let the private sector find solutions. Had the referendum passed, it would have halted private development at the mill and, arguably, elsewhere in L-A.

A massive campaign was waged for the hearts and minds of voters between the pro-Bates Mill development group “Citizens for Local Jobs and Opportunities,” and the opposing organization called “We the People,” which favored no further spending on the mill. LAEGC and LDC spoke out in favor of mill development, along with other groups, and supported running large color ads and writing letters to the editor.

Voters soundly defeated the referenda, which became a rallying cry for revitalization and private sector investment. Across the state, developers who were waiting for the results of the referenda got the message loud and clear: Lewiston-Auburn was open for business and new ideas.

In 1998, People’s Heritage announced that by 2000, 500 employees would work at the Mill. Later that year, Portland, Oregon-based Telemark began operating its call center at the mill, in part due to LAEGC.

Eventually, as Platz renovated more mill space, more excitement was generated. Platz eventually purchased Mills 3 and 6, and later, Mill 7, before reaching an agreement with the city to buy the entire complex except Mill 5 and a smaller maintenance building. Peoples Bank – now TD Bank – continued expanding at the mill, along with Livebridge, Museum L-A, and newcomers Androscoggin Bank, Fishbones, AAA, and Willy Beans.  

Diamond in the rough

As LAEGC grew older, it also grew in sophistication as it tackled more complex deals, issues, and challenges. Consider the case of Diamond Phoenix, the resurrected Diamond Machine Tools.

Diamond Machine Tools, a Lewiston company that struggled to survive in the 1990s, found its salvation in two investors, Tom Coyne and Larry Strayhorn. These entrepreneurs created a new company, Diamond Phoenix Corporation, that became a leading provider of automated warehousing and material handling systems. Clients included Boeing, Lowe’s, and Hallmark Cards.

Diamond’s product lines consist of carousels, conveyors and transporters, robotic extractors, vertical lifts, advanced software and controls, and bar code scanners. LAEGC helped find a site for a new 105,000-square-foot, $6 million headquarters and manufacturing facility at the Alfred Plourde Parkway in Lewiston.

Diamond Phoenix worked closely with the Lewiston Development Corp., LAEGC, and Coastal Enterprises, Inc. to fund the project through an innovative plan using traditional and nonconventional financing.

 1999 heralds new age

Indeed, 1999 was a big year for LAEGC and the L-A community. Economic development activity was starting to pick up in a way not seen since the 1980s. Under the leadership of Mayor Lee Young, Auburn was in the midst of realizing a plan for downtown redevelopment unprecedented in the city’s recent history. Called the Auburn Downtown Action Plan for Tomorrow, it included plans to create a walking trail along the Androscoggin called the Riverwalk, a public performance space called Festival Plaza, new retail projects in the downtown, and a new hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn Auburn Riverwatch. The LAEGC board formally endorsed the plan in 1999, and eventually helped finance the hotel through a loan with the Auburn Business Development Corporation.

Perhaps the biggest news that same year was how the U.S. Postal Service courted local officials to site a massive Postal Service Distribution Center in the Twin Cities. Having outgrown its Forest Avenue location in Portland, the U.S. Postal Service began a quest to locate a new mail processing and distribution center. After the Postal Service looked at the Greater Portland area, it broadened its search to include L-A.

The Cities of Lewiston and Auburn collaborated to provide two site proposals — one on Alfred Plourde Parkway in Lewiston, the other, on Kittyhawk Avenue near Exit 80 in Auburn. On Oct. 20, 1999, postal officials announced Lewiston and Auburn were the two finalists.

Both sites were favorable to the U.S. Postal Service because of their proximity to the Maine Turnpike, lack of environmental concerns, and central location to service the state’s mail distribution. In a press release from its public relations personnel, postal officials said “the decision to move North is in the Postal Service’s best long-term business interest… In a centralized location, our new plant will better serve the entire State of Maine.”

Then came a backlash from postal employees and union officials who didn’t want to commute to L-A. In the end, postal officials caved to political pressure, and reversed their decision, ultimately choosing Scarborough. While residents and local officials were stymied, the publicity L-A received for its quick and collaborative efforts and quality site location assistance later helped land L-A the largest development project in its recent history: a Wal-Mart Distribution Center.

The turn of the century seemed to be the gun that fired and marked a new race toward progress, renovation, and development. The Bates College-led L/A Excels initiative, while short-lived, got people to think about big ideas such as a convention center, the arts, a hotel, and performing arts space.

Around that time, with employers growing and creating new jobs at a rapid pace, Lewiston-Auburn found itself with record low unemployment. An interesting problem to have, it was a painful challenge for some companies who couldn’t find qualified employees.

LAEGC became involved, and summoned a group of human resource professionals to hear their thoughts on how best to handle the new recruiting crisis. LAEGC’s response: an Internet-based job database called Hire L/A, funded in part by a $12,000 grant from the Bell Atlantic Foundation in 2000. The on-line site listed job postings, allowed users to post their resumes, and offered company descriptions.

In 2002, LAEGC administered Department of Transportation funds on behalf of the Lewiston-Auburn Railroad Company to preserve an inactive rail corridor in downtown Lewiston for future freight or passenger service. The L-A Railroad corridor is a spur along part of Lincoln Street that may one day connect to St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad and other lines, providing an international trade route to Halifax and Vancouver ports, as well as connecting to other parts of Maine. LAEGC staffs the Railroad Company, established in 1872.

Yellow smiling face arrives

Also in 2002, Wal* Mart Inc. announced it would build a massive food distribution center on the Alfred Plourde Parkway site that had been abandoned by the U.S. Postal Service just a few years prior. The initial announcement called for a 485,000-square-foot facility to be built in 2004, though delays pushed the project to 2005.

Wal*Mart later announced it would move ahead with a second phase, preparing 130 acres of land for construction of an 850,000-square-foot Mechanized Food Distribution Warehouse to service Wal*Mart Supercenters throughout New England. When completed, the project became Maine’s largest distribution center , and one of the ten largest employers in Lewiston.

The project was built in two phases. The dry box warehouse was completed in 2005, and the refrigerated warehouse in 2006. The project was billed as the largest economic development project in Lewiston-Auburn in 30 years.  The Maine State Planning office estimated the secondary impacts of the project alone would result in the creation of hundreds of jobs with a combined payroll of $11 million.

Central Maine Power Company made major investments to improve electrical service, building a new substation for Wal*Mart, as well as for additional projects.

In 1999, the Auburn Business Development Corporation recognized that the number of facilities ready for fit-up were limited in the Twin Cities, and that a spec building would be easier to market to clients who were looking for ready-made space. The problem was getting the capital to create such a spec building.

With the help of LAEGC, ABDC undertook an ambitious campaign to raise money from the private sector in the form of debentures, or non-interest bearing financial coupons. Debentures were sold for a minimum of $250 each. Contributors agreed to lend a sum of money to be returned at some point in the distant future. In the spirit of collaboration, the Lewiston Development Corporation and LAEGC each made a $25,000 debenture purchase, while the city of Auburn donated the land and made a $200,000 grant. A remaining 25 local businesses supported the effort.

The result: a spec building that was sold before it was even complete. The willing buyers were Angostura International, one of the world’s largest purveyors of premium rums and spirits exported to more than 145 countries. When the company purchased Winthrop-based C.V. Finer Foods, makers of sauces and marinades, it looked for a location with growth potential. It found ABDC’s 42,000-square-foot spec building a perfect match. In the summer of 2002, the company celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and recently announced it was nearly doubling its space to about 80,000 square feet.

Earlier that year, LAEGC launched its popular “L-A: It’s Happening Here” initiative, an image and awareness campaign that branded L-A as a community of opportunity and renaissance. It emphasized four key areas as proof points of progress: economic development activity, the arts, higher education, and health care. Banners were placed on major development projects, and print, radio, and TV ads touted L-A’s success. The logo and strategy were unveiled at an L/A Excels Community Convention.

In fact, so much development took place in 2002 that the community was the statewide leader in number of new expansions and investments, according to the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.

From a development standpoint, it appeared L-A was on steroids. Its major institutions, from Central Maine Community College to L-A College, Central Maine Medical Center to St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce to the Good Shepherd Food Bank, were growing – even bursting at the seams.

LAEGC tried to do its part to serve as catalyst in some cases, and as major players in others. For example, LDC purchased 61 Westminster Street, a strategic decision that would one day allow L-A College to expand its cramped campus next door. LDC leased the facility until L-A College was ready to acquire it in 2005, making it possible for the college to plan for a community learning center as part of the local College for ME Androscoggin initiative.

During the early 2000s, transportation and logistics became an industry with huge potential for L-A. The area was becoming attractive for distribution and warehousing projects. Besides its central location, L-A had valuable commodities such as a U.S. Customs Port, double-stack intermodal service, St. Lawrence & Atlantic Rail lines, a growing number of distribution centers, and value-added service providers such as Safe Handling and the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport. With a large number of manufacturers and companies in the area, LAEGC saw an opportunity to market itself as an international trade and logistics hub.

LAEGC began an application process to establish a Foreign Trade Zone, an area considered outside the territory of U.S. Customs. In an FTZ, qualifying companies can import products or raw materials and defer, reduce, or eliminate paying tariffs and experience lower inventory costs. A 760-acre parcel encompassing the Auburn Intermodal Transfer Facility and the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport was approved as an FTZ in 2004.

To take advantage of the FTZ designation and continue tackling the perennial issue of limited development space, ABDC and LAEGC worked on a plan to create a new Auburn Industrial Park. The 140-plus acre industrial park abuts the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport, and drew the interest of Bisson Transportation, which created a 100,000-square-foot heated and secure warehouse, with a complete array of inventory logistics services. Safe Handling also created a massive warehouse and distribution facility called the Port of Auburn LLC.

In addition to ongoing projects including FTZ marketing, staffing the L-A Railroad Company, and providing support for its sister corporations with spec building and industrial park projects, the organization also maintains the new Business Service Center in Lewiston’s Southern Gateway on Lisbon Street. The one-stop shop for business services includes the offices of LAEGC, the Androscoggin County Chamber, Coastal Enterprises, the Androscoggin Land Trust, Merrill Lynch, and others.

As always, it continues to offer its services and support to the cities, prospective clients, existing businesses, and statewide leaders to make the community a worldclass location.

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