🔒Auburn development boom has mayor’s buy-in

Auburn Mayor Jason Levesque is such a fan of downtown development that he’s also a property owner.

His latest investment, through a new firm called Aegean Development, is the $5.5 million purchase of the Peck Building. Located at 184 Main St. in Lewiston, it was built in 1899 and housed the state’s first and largest department store for over a century. Still referred to as the Great Department Store Building, it’s now an L.L.Bean call center. Boutique law firm Brann & Isaacson is also a tenant.

Levesque bought the building from L.L.Bean, which will remain a tenant.

“When they approached me,” Levesque said, “it made a lot of sense for them. They wanted a good steward of the building, and I was looking for a good investment.” It’s his second downtown development, the first being the former McCrory’s Department Store on Lisbon Street that he renovated and made into offices for his call-center firm, Argo Contact Centers. He sold Argo in October 2017 and the building this past January.

Keen to pivot into commercial property management, he founded Aegean “to be that vehicle for property development.”

A fifth-generation Auburn resident who returned to Maine after attending West Virginia Wesleyan College, Levesque oozes enthusiasm about Auburn and the greater Lewiston-Auburn area in terms of location and affordability.

“The cost of homes and land for commercial development is very low, especially compared to Portland,” he says. “That’s one of our strengths.”

He also sees a benefit from the continued growth of Maine’s largest city, a half-hour drive from his hometown. “What’s good for Portland is good for Auburn.”

Auburn has seen close to $66 million in commercial projects (based on permits) over the past two years, according to Brett Sawyer, an economic development specialist with the city. And Levesque recalls one recent Monday where five new housing permits were issued in a single day.

“In the rest of the state permitting can take days if not months,” he said. “We’re pushing through building permits and really living by this mantra that the business of government is business.”