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April 3, 2006

Covering the bases | Steve Levesque takes over as head of the Brunswick Local Redevelopment Authority

By Taylor Smith
Steve Levesque is sitting tight until May 9. That's when the U.S. Navy will decide which federal agencies and other groups get first whack at surplus property at the marked-for-closure Brunswick Naval Air Station. As the newly hired executive director of the Brunswick Local Redevelopment Authority, Levesque is charged with creating a reuse plan for the 3,200-acre base with whatever is left over. But he admits the Navy's property allocations could impact his group's ability to turn the sprawling base into a regional economic centerpiece over the next decade. "Our concern is these proposed [federal] uses will, in a sense, pre-empt the planning process for those facilities," says Levesque. "But that's just part of the way it works."

For Levesque, who accepted the BLRA position in February and started full time in late March, there's no use fighting the feds. During the next month he'll be busy assembling a staff and a group of outside consultants. That team will begin developing the reuse plan as soon as the Navy posts its decision on requests for roughly 120 acres of property from federal groups such as the U.S. Army and the Federal Aviation Administration. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, for example, has filed a request on behalf of the Penobscot Nation for 50 acres of property.

But managing open-ended development plans is nothing new to Levesque, who spent nearly five years as commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. He began that post in 1997 at the tail end of Gov. Angus King's first term, and left DECD when King moved out of the Blaine House in 2002. (Most recently, Levesque has run SHL Enterprise Solutions, an economic development consulting firm in Hallowell.)
As DECD commissioner, Levesque says he was responsible for moderating clashing viewpoints and negotiating bureaucratic roadblocks to bring development projects to fruition. "There are some similarities [at BLRA]," he says. "We'll have to bring in all sorts of folks to make sure the plan is effective and represents the values of the community."

For the next 15 months, Levesque will quarterback the development of a reuse plan for the Brunswick base. And by next summer, he expects to have a finalized plan in hand, cleared by local officials and ready to release to the public. What that plan will be, however, is unclear. Levesque says the facility is large enough to accommodate multiple uses, from conservation and recreation to business and municipal. Meanwhile, Levesque says that because the Navy will receive fair-market prices for the property, it may be reluctant to grant each request from federal sources like the Army or the FAA, which wouldn't have to pay a dime.

Although how the base will be redeveloped is anyone's guess, Levesque also says it's anyone's choice. Levesque says he'll work to ensure everyone from community groups to state agencies has a hand in developing the plan. "We want a process where people can say, 'What about this?' or 'What about that?'" he says. "We want it to be a very open dialogue with all interested parties. I'd like this place to be a special place ˆ— not just a basic business park, but something that can define this region for the next hundred years."

That said, Levesque knows that redeveloping BNAS will be a highly publicized effort. And with so many groups likely to clamor for their say during the planning stage, the final plan his group eventually releases won't make everybody happy. "I've been in this business a long time, and you never get 100% agreement on anything," he says. "But I think there can be a majority interest, and you can only do that with an open and inclusive process."

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