Portland area makes pitch to collaborate
Photo/Jan Holder
Jim Cohen, an attorney with Verrill Dana in Portland, expects regional support for collaborative economic development
A new coalition that would collaboratively market the greater Portland area to attract new business and investment is readying bylaws and a pitch for funds as it prepares to launch next year.
“We as a region need to figure out what to say yes to,” says Jim Cohen, a former Portland mayor and city council member who works as an attorney and partner with Verrill Dana in Portland and is volunteering his time to assemble the group’s paperwork.
The goal is to create a regional economic development authority to represent Portland, South Portland, Scarborough, Westbrook, Falmouth and Cape Elizabeth.
Instead of competing against each other for potential new businesses — such as landing a biotech firm interested in the region — Cohen says it’s much more effective if the communities work together and market their strengths.
The group, which includes each community’s economic development director, is putting together the documentation and bylaws needed to get the proposed authority off the ground, says Cohen. Each municipal government would have to approve the group and would be asked to contribute some money to fund it.
Cohen says he believes city councils and town councils will be supportive because they will recognize this group could deliver more property-tax paying businesses and jobs than working independently.
“I’m hopeful there will be a positive reception,” Cohen says.
Following a model
Despite being the state’s largest population and business base, the greater Portland area is a latecomer to the idea of collaboration. Paul Badeau, marketing director for the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council, says that group was formed in 1981 after the two cities realized they needed to work together to attract new business.
“When we created this, it was actually ground breaking at the time,” Badeau says.
One of the group’s biggest successes involved luring a Wal-Mart distribution center to Lewiston in 2001 that hired 450 people when it opened in 2004, making it one of the Twin Cities’ largest employers.
Other collaborations, such as the Midcoast’s Knox-Waldo Regional Economic Development Council, formed in 2006, have also paid dividends. The group attracted athenahealth to Belfast in the fall of 2007 after the company initially expressed interest in occupying the former MBNA facility in Rockland. The company, which does back-office processing for hospitals, doctors and medical facilities, employs 250 people.
Meanwhile, incoming Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce Chairman Michael Ballesteros told Mainebiz in January that he sees regional collaboration essential in making the Bangor arena project a reality.
Greg Mitchell, Portland’s economic development director, formerly served in that same job in Lewiston and was a long-standing supporter and architect of collaboration there. He says a regional economic group would attract more federal grant funding, as well as promote the region to out-of-state businesses.
“You’re marketing an area of the state instead of an individual community,” says Mitchell. “As the region grows, we’ll grow.”
The impetus for the greater Portland group comes from a desire to develop a biotechnology cluster within the area, says Mitchell.
In September, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree announced that Portland and Westbrook would receive $885,000 in grants from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to help pay for infrastructure improvements to expand the Five Star Industrial Park in Westbrook and develop the Rand Road Industrial Park in Portland.
The Five Star Industrial Park is the headquarters of Idexx Laboratories Inc., a biotechnology firm, and several other companies. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that enhancing the business parks will lead to the creation of 960 jobs and over $160 million in private investment.
Keith Luke, Westbrook’s director of economic and community development, says officials within the four cities recognize that when a prospective biotechnology firm or another company decides to occupy or build a new warehouse/office building in one community, part of that decision is based on what the region has to offer. If a biotech company like an Idexx — one of the state’s largest employers — decides to set up shop in any one of the cities that make up the region, it’s a win-win for all of the communities involved.
Cohen already understands the benefits of collaboration. As mayor, he urged the six greater Portland communities to work together to secure funds to build a crime lab for the region’s law enforcement agencies in 2008.
Ideally, Cohen would like to see the authority up and running in 2011 so it will be poised to compete with other regions in other states to vie for the same business opportunities. Still to be determined are how the proposed authority will be governed; what the financial requirements of each participating community will be; and who will actually serve on the authority, Cohen says.
Luke says he is optimistic the group will become a reality because all of the communities involved are on the same page, which has already been reflected in subtle ways. At the January Maine Real Estate and Development Authority’s annual forecasting conference, Portland, South Portland, Westbrook and Scarborough shared one booth rather than staff separate booths as in years past. Likewise, all four cities sent representatives to the Bio2009 in Atlanta in May of last year to recruit biotechnology companies. Next year, if all goes well, it will be the single, regional authority making the pitch, Luke says.
“The spirit of cooperation between the communities in the greater Portland region has never been better than it is right now,” he says.
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