🔒Planned Somerset County plywood plant clears hurdle with USDA backing

A Chicago businessman, Charlie Martin, has been working for the past several years to reestablish a plywood factory in the Somerset County town of Bingham. He trucked in industrial plywood-manufacturing equipment from Canada and bought surplus boilers from the old B&M Baked Bean factory. But, until just recently, he was running into challenges raising capital to finance the operation. He may have turned the corner with a recent loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural development program, announced late last week. Maine Plywood USA LLC, as the Bingham operation will be known, will receive $11.9 million in loan guarantees through the USDA Rural Development program. It will guarantee loans from a bank in Florida that specializes in projects backed by the USDA. "We're taking a building that was vacant for 14 years and turning it into a state-of-the-art plywood factory," Martin told Mainebiz. The factory — which resurrects an earlier plywood production site that has been closed for 14 years — is expected to employ up to 110 people. “This investment reflects the USDA’s and Trump Administration's commitment to investing in our natural resource industries in rural America," John Butera, director of USDA Rural Development Maine, said in a news release. "In Maine, the forest products industry has a long tradition of strengthening our local economies," he added. "This support for a Maine timber business is anticipated to create economic prosperity and jobs in rural Maine." The financing is earmarked for construction, renovation, equipment purchase, refinancing debt, inventory and working capital costs associated with converting an existing sawmill and wood manufacturing facility into a plywood underlayment facility in Bingham.

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Martin said the project faces at least six months of outfitting to get up and running. The facility is anticipated to produce 2.5 million sheets of plywood underlayment in the first full year of stabilized operations. The funding, which includes two loans of $5.9 million and $6 million through the Timber Production and Expansion Guaranteed Loan Program, will be supplemented with owner and investor equity of $2.2 million. Maine Plywood also received a $1 million grant from the Maine Technology Institute.