From decommissioned Navy base to one of state’s biggest economic success stories
Photo / COURTESY MIDCOAST REGIONAL REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
Brunswick Landing, a former Navy air base, is now a business park.
Brunswick Naval Air Station opened in 1943 and thrived for decades as the city’s major economic driver. By the early 21st century it employed 6,500, including 700 area civilians, supporting a $140 million payroll.
When the Navy announced in 2005 the base would close, the region braced for economic devastation.
The Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority was formed to take charge of the economic development of the site, renamed Brunswick Landing: Maine’s Center for Innovation. When the MRRA took over in 2011, as the country was still climbing out of the Great Recession, the goal was to 800 new jobs by 2018.
That goal was left in the dust. By 2018, there were 1,620 jobs at Brunswick Landing.
The “innovation” in the name isn’t just for show – that focus has made Brunswick Landing a success, Steve Levesque, MRRA executive director said that year. “It created something that’s not your average industrial park.”
Two years later, there are 2,300 jobs, 140 businesses, an annual payroll of $110 million and $425 million in private investment at the former Navy air base.
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