FirstPark seeks developer for remaining acreage
Courtesy / FirstPark
From left, Stephen Monsulick Jr., president of FirstPark, Erik Urbanek, managing director of SVN|The Urbanek Group Advisors and Jim Dinkle, executive director of FirstPark, at the Oakland business park.
Oakland’s FirstPark business complex is seeking a potential investor to buy the entirety of its remaining acreage.
It also has a plan to “reshore” businesses, or bring back more business development and production to the U.S.
Toward both goals, FirstPark has hired Portland-based SVN|The Urbanek Group Advisors as the business park’s commercial and industrial real estate broker.
"COVID-19 has changed the way businesses do business and where they do business,” Jim Dinkle, executive director of FirstPark, said in a news release. “Experts are projecting that reshoring will continue to increase in the years ahead due to the long-term impact of the coronavirus.”
The value of producing, manufacturing and buying products made in the U.S. has become more important for consumers, vendors and suppliers, he said.
“Our commercial real estate lots are all pre-permitted and shovel ready, plus the fiber Internet for high-speed video conferencing and seamless remote working capabilities is a huge benefit,” he said. “We know the partnership with SVN will bring a lot more attention to the business park, region and our quality of life.”
The park was established by the Kennebec Valley Regional Development Authority, which was created by a state mandate in 1999 and includes 24 central Maine municipalities that together support the FirstPark project through shared costs and revenues.
The mandate required the authority to sell the park in part, through subdivision, or in whole, Dinkle told Mainebiz.
To date, 55 acres have been sold to individual businesses. The park has seen an uptick in lot sales over the past year, and is now “striking while the iron is hot,” he said, to make a more concerted marketing push to sell the remaining 230 acres to a developer.
There’s no list price for the entire 230 acres, but the starting per-acre price is $15,000 for a premium lot facing Interstate 95, he said.
“We’re open to proposals,” he said. “A developer could buy the remaining 230 acres of developable land and then create a master plan for planned unit development for what’s left of the park out of the original 285 acres.”
Proposals must conform with the authority’s original purpose to create jobs and revenue to benefit communities, he added.
“It’s not a fire sale,” he said. “We’re not going to sell it to someone to land-bank it.”
The relationship with SVN provides FirstPark with local, national and international exposure. Through the SVN national platform, SVN in Portland will have the exclusive listing and SVN in Chicago will have an associate listing.
The 285-acre business park is in a Foreign Trade Zone in the central part of the state along the I‐95 corridor, about halfway between Bangor and Portland.
In the past three years, FirstPark hired Dinkle, created a long-term marketing plan, attracted three new businesses and attention of site selectors around the world, including a visit from Kim Yonghyon, consul general of the Republic of Korea in Boston. The park has also added shovel-ready lots, protective covenants, innovative technology and infrastructure.
In the year ahead, the park expects to make more investments, including increasing the marketing, exploration of residential options and creation of a dog park.
Businesses already in the park include medical, financial and service industries. T-Mobile is the anchor tenant and largest building in the park. Bioenergetic Healing, Gateway Financial Partners, Inland Foot & Ankle, L.L.Bean, MaineGeneral, Maine Medical Partners, Maine Eye Doctors, One River CPAs, Waterville Community Dental Center and SurgiCare also are located inside the business park.
FirstPark has several available lots and anticipates interest from businesses in manufacturing and other sectors. The complex is seeing a surge of interest during the pandemic, including the park's third sale of property in 2020, to Maine Eye Doctors.
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