New Jersey-baed Hale Trailer Brake & Wheel Inc. expects the facility at 969 Portland Road to be complete and operational by late spring 2027.
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New Jersey-based Hale Trailer Brake & Wheel Inc. plans to break ground on May 28 on a facility at 969 Portland Road in Saco, formerly home to the Saco Drive-In movie theater.
When completed, the company will relocate from 20 Pinetree Industrial Parkway in Portland.
The Saco Drive-In opened at 969 Portland Road in 1939. After the property was sold in 2022, the drive-in theater moved across the street to 980 Portland Road.
The U.S. Route 1 stretch through Saco has been attracting interest from developers, home builders and retailers in recent years.
Second-oldest branch
Hale Trailer claims to be North America's largest independent trailer dealership. Founded in 1975 by Barry Hale in Voorhees, N.J., it sells and rents vans, flatbeds, lowboys and "heavy haul" specialized equipment. It also offers maintenance, parts and financing.
It operates more than 15 locations along the East Coast and as far west as Iowa and Arkansas.
One of its first customers was Merrill Transport of Portland.
“This prompted Barry Hale to make a trip to Maine in 1984 to see these customers and find out why they were coming all the way to New Jersey to buy trailers,” the company said. “The answer he got was that there was no trailer dealer in New England with a good supply of trailers on the ground.”
Hale’s Portland location opened in 1989 and is the company’s second-oldest branch.
Expanding operations
The move to Saco is tied to continued growth, a spokesperson told Mainebiz. The larger facility in Saco will be nearly 50,000 square feet on 33 acres, designed to support expanding operations and future development.
The old drive-in theater structures have been dismantled.
Hale Trailer expects the Saco facility to be complete and operational by late spring 2027.
BCO+H Architects in Benton, Ark., and Great Falls Construction in Gorham are working on the project.
“This investment reflects our commitment to the Saco community,” Barry Hale Jr., Hale’s son and the company’s president, said of his company’s construction project. “We’re proud to build on the site’s legacy by creating jobs and supporting the local economy.”
