Penobscot Landing

Economic Development a Success Story in Brewer
New access road, waterfront plans near fruition

BREWER — Once ridiculed for its political antics and seemingly endless string of lawsuits, this small city of just under 9,000 is becoming known for a can-do attitude toward economic development that is bucking a disappointing trend in much of eastern Maine, according to city officials.

Though the city’s population has remained unchanged in the past two decades, the number of companies that call Brewer home has increased significantly, especially in the last few years.

Based on several recent business expansions and announced development projects, the city’s valuation is projected to rise at least 17 percent by 2005 — from $424 million to more than $500 million, city officials said.

“It’s a new day in Brewer,” Drew Sachs, economic development director, said while discussing the recent development boom.
While development has been sluggish in much of eastern, central and northern Maine, Brewer has seen:

Combined, City Manager Stephen Bost says, these projects will greatly diversify Brewer’s economy, until now heavily geared toward small businesses and the ailing pulp and paper industry. They bring medical, professional, light industry and national retail into the mix.

Sachs says some new components, such as health care, are “countercyclical.” In other words, they’re expected to hold steady despite peaks and valleys in the local and state economy.

“It’s a good time to be mayor,” Mayor Michael Celli said recently with a laugh. “People keep asking, ‘What in the world are you people doing over there because we’d like to know.’”

Bost, Sachs, Celli and other city leaders predict that some of the major projects, such as EMH’s health park and Wal-Mart, will trigger significant spinoff activity in the Wilson Street commercial corridor, as restaurants, hotels and retailers scramble to set up shop in an area with built-in customers.

“That spinoff effect will help the smaller guy,” said Sachs. In anticipation of added traffic on already busy Wilson Street, the city plans to build a parallel access road between I-395 and Wilson Street, from Parkway South to EMH’s campus. Bost said the road will open up land that’s escaped development for lack of access. The city hopes to start the road in late fall or next spring. A Wilson Street widening and two new traffic lights also are planned.

So how did it happen?

David Cole, executive director of Eastern Maine Development Corp., looks at what’s happening here from his post as head of an organization responsible for business and trade in a six-county area.
“Like most things, it’s a combination of hard work and opportunity. Success is not an accident. It’s a product of long-term planning,” Cole said. A classic Brewer example is the East-West Industrial Park. The park, once referred to as “Stevens’ Folly” by those skeptical of then-City Manager Earle Stevens’ vision for the empty acres acquired three decades ago, is now almost fully developed.

“Brewer was ready for it. If you were to place a grid over an aerial map of the region, you’d see that more and more of the land that’s being developed now is close to [the interstate],” Cole said, citing the Bangor Mall area and Hampden’s new business park as examples. “Outer Wilson Street is an area whose time has come.”

Promotion a key

When I-395 arrived in the 1980s, many speculated about what would happen there, recalled Cole. Many expected a boom. There were rumors of shopping malls and other big projects. Though some businesses did locate near it, there was relatively little activity after the first decade. Wal-Mart and EMH will be two key anchors.

It doesn’t hurt that Brewer is working hard to promote itself and the region, notes U.S. Rep. John Baldacci, a Bangor Democrat.
“The city officials in Brewer have been working hard to get the word out,” he observed. “They’ve been aggressively courting businesses, industries and families.”

Baldacci said city leaders also work closely with their Bangor counterparts on issues of mutual concern, ranging from the health of Bangor International Airport to quality of life for families.
“They have a good sense of direction about what’s good for the region,” he said. “They’ve been very good at playing off the strengths of Bangor. We need to encourage more of this collaboration.”

John Butera, business development director for the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, believes recent development successes in Brewer, Bangor and elsewhere in the region have increased confidence among potential investors.

“I think success breeds more success,” Butera said. When business and industry leaders contemplating doing business here see other projects working, they’re more likely to invest themselves, he said.
Butera also credits Brewer’s hot streak to bold but sound strategy. “It’s not a pie in the sky plan but one that’s realistic. That’s key for any community or region,” said Butera. He compares development to erecting buildings. “First you have to design it, then you have to gather the tools and supplies and then you have to build it to suit the tenant’s needs,” he said, with tenants being businesses and industries.

Overhauled plan

Sachs, Bost and Celli attribute Brewer’s recent successes, in large part, to an improved city image and efforts to tackle the needs residents and businesspeople cited in the mid-1990s, when Brewer overhauled its comprehensive plan.

“You’ve got to have a plan and you’ve got to have the right people to implement it,” Celli pointed out.

In several “Speak-Out Brewer” meetings, aspects of everyday life residents most valued included good schools, distance from “big city” problems, friendly neighborhoods and a history-rich waterfront.
As Cole sees it, the quality-of-life issues residents grappled with at the time are more important to their future than they seem on the surface: “In coming years, investment will really follow where you find an educated and trained work force, and the work force will go where people want to live,” he said.

Things residents felt would make life better were more recreation, especially along the river, and a more “cooperative, broad-minded, proactive” City Hall.

In fact, residents saw “a lack of team effort, poor image and attitude of City Council” as the No. 1 barrier to Brewer becoming the kind of community they wanted. A lack of money and grants and high taxes ranked second.

The city has since undergone a visible transformation. Recent hires have brought fresh ideas. The city has taken steps to make local government more accessible. It has reorganized and consolidated some city departments, overhauled outdated zoning ordinances and implemented an online permitting program, one of the first in Maine.
Comment from residents, board and committee members and developers formed the basis of the comprehensive plan, which Sachs says enabled him and others to focus the city’s development efforts and resources “like a laser beam.”

The efforts of the Brewer Economic Development Corp. also helped grow Brewer’s business base. The volunteer group helped bring economic development to the forefront here by helping fund Brewer’s first full-time development director, Les Stevens. The Brewer Economic Development Corp. has worked closely with the city to foster development.

“It’s proper development and it’s not something that happens by accident,” says President Mike Legasse. “We’re our own people and we divine our own destiny.”

A tool that’s proved useful is tax-increment financing. “They’ve been used aggressively but judiciously,” Legasse said. “You have to be aggressive, but don’t give away the store.” While some once saw Brewer as anti-business, “Now, it’s ‘How can we help you?’”

Taking risks necessary

The city also has taken risks, chief among them the acquisition of more than 80 acres once seen as “rural hinterlands.” That step primed the pump for much of the development expected on outer Wilson Street and the spinoff projects already starting to occur.

Ed Darling of Bangor, owner of Down East Toyota-Buick, is doubling the service area at his Wilson Street dealership, due in part to the projected traffic increase.

“It’s certainly hastening my plans,” he said. The expansion is the dealership’s second since opening in 1973.

“We’re now what I like to think of as a progressive city and have restructured city government to provide progressive services to both residents and businesses,” Sachs said.

Gail Kelly, who works for Republican U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe and is a candidate for council here in the Nov. 6 city election, said Brewer has been aggressive in pursuing federal dollars for its waterfront initiative.
“I’m telling you that they’ve worked so hard and so diligently in promoting it,” she said. Snowe’s office is continually briefed on the progress. “And that’s important from our point of view.” Work that that might qualify for federal aid includes erosion control and the proposed public market.

As a resident, Kelly sees an intangible benefit from all the recent development activity: “When people feel good about their town, they are more likely to get involved.”

Working with Bangor

When Kelly considers the future of the Bangor-Brewer stretch of the Penobscot River, she sees two strategies that complement each other. “I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never seen people this excited about the waterfront on both sides of the river.”

In the works for more than a decade, Bangor’s plan calls for hotels, several office buildings, a 60,000-square-foot retail and restaurant pavilion and a 30,000-square-foot nautical center. Of the $146 million projected cost, about $40 million would come from public funds and the rest from private investment. Included in that figure is $3 million from Bangor businessman Christopher Hutchins for a large amphitheater.
Brewer’s plans are more recent and aimed at supporting work on the Bangor side. Proposed attractions include an entertainment district, public market, pedestrian mall, boating facilities, boat-building museum, upscale condominium complex, small amphitheater and recreational trails.

“On our side, we wanted a project that reflects some of the things that we pride ourselves on,” said Bost. Smaller in scale than Bangor’s, Brewer’s plan is ambitious. It will require substantial investment — $35 million to $57 million to implement fully — but is structured to be done in small, manageable chunks.

Though the city will take on some of the cost, up to $7 million, the bulk will come from private investment and federal and state sources. Private investment already is occurring.

The Allen/Freeman/McDonnell Agency just bought the Carter Building, a 1909 brick landmark. In South Brewer, a new bakery and an antiques mall have opened. The Harborside Restaurant, closed for years, is the focus of new interest.

“Brewer’s moving ahead and in a thoughtful manner,” Celli said. “It’s going to change but not in the sense of becoming a big city. The plan is — and will continue to be — to have Brewer continue to be a nice bedroom community, but one with better services, better schools and lower taxes.”

Celli notes, however, that the city still has much work to do and little money with which to do it. The short-range challenge is that the tax income from some of the major projects in the works won’t be available for a year or two.

Projections prepared in June — before plans for the natural gas compression plant were unveiled — suggest that by 2005, Brewer’s valuation could jump from $424 million to more than $500 million — 17 percent — with the biggest increase in 2004. The forecast assumes average yearly growth of 2.3 percent will continue but reflects projects now in the pipeline. It includes conservative estimates for private investment on the waterfront, Wilson Street and along the proposed parallel access road.

As the mayor sees things, it’s a matter of biting the bullet today to help ensure a better future. “I’m asking people to be optimistic and bear with us for a while,” Celli said. Once the tax revenues from the latest development projects begin to pour into the city’s coffers, he said, Brewer will be in a better position to become the kind of community its residents want it to be.

“Like most things, it’s a combination of hard work and opportunity. Success is not an accident. It’s a product of long-term planning.”
— David Cole, executive director of Eastern Maine Development Corp.

This is a copyright article written by Dawn Gagnon of the NEWS Staff that appeared in the Bangor Daily News, Saturday, October 13, 2001.

The City of Brewer
80 North Main Street
Brewer, ME 04412
207-989-7500
www.brewerme.org