🔒UMaine expansions push R&D in manufacturing, aquaculture

When University of Maine students return to Orono this fall, they’ll be greeted with two new advanced facilities designed to expand opportunities for research, workforce development and industry collaboration.

The combined investment for the Green Engineering and Materials building and the Sustainable Aquaculture Workforce Innovation Center will top $92 million.

Collaboration between students and industry

The 50,000-square-foot Green Engineering and Materials, or GEM, building will further innovation in advanced manufacturing and will be home to the college’s Factory of the Future.

In addition to providing an immersive learning environment for students across the university system, the facility will provide a large-format hybrid manufacturing test bed for entrepreneurs and established businesses.

Innovative digital technologies will include AI-enabled 3D printing — and the university says the building’s polymer printer will be the world’s largest. The site will facilitate advances in creating affordable housing, marine vessels, renewable energy and civil infrastructure components.

“GEM is the first building in the nation to bring people together under one roof  — from grade school to university and from communities to industry,” says Giovanna Guidoboni, interim vice president for research and dean of the Maine College of Engineering and Computing. It will “rethink not just what we build, but what we build it with and what we build it for.”

Additionally, a 20-student teaching space, to be christened Mini GEM, will extend opportunities to undergraduate and K-12 students, educators, faculty and working professionals.

Mini GEM will focus on how manufacturing, robotics and related technologies work together and will link programming with training available through UMaine’s B.O.T Loft, the state-of-the-art robotics and automation facility, which opened in August 2025.

“GEM will not only enhance high-tech innovation by established scientists, but also give students and the next generation of faculty researchers the chance to learn together,” says Emily Haddad, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

In addition to training the next generation, the hope is that GEM will change how manufacturing is perceived.

“That convergence of science, technology and people,” Guidoboni says, “will grow Maine’s economy and intellectual resources and put us at the forefront of how manufacturing itself is conceived across the nation.”

Consigli builds on portfolio of mass timber buildings

The construction of the $81 million GEM building is as cutting-edge as the facility’s capabilities. It’s built primarily of glulam and cross-laminated mass timber, by Consigli Construction’s Portland office.

Design was a collaboration between two Portland firms, SMRT Architects & Engineers in partnership with Thornton Tomasetti, along with the international architecture firm Grimshaw.

Aquaculture lab to offer hands-on training

The 14,200-square-foot Sustainable Aquaculture Workforce Innovation Center is designed to be a hands-on hub for land-based aquaculture research, education and workforce development, serving both UMaine students and Maine’s aquaculture industry.

“One of the things that makes SAWIC particularly exciting is that students and workers will be learning on real, commercially relevant systems with equipment similar to what they would encounter in industry,” Deborah Bouchard, director of the Aquaculture Research Institute, tells Mainebiz.

“A good example of the connection between research and industry is UMaine’s existing off-flavor lab, which will move into SAWIC,” Bouchard adds. “The lab uses a testing method developed at UMaine to screen farmed fish for compounds that can cause off-flavors and create quality concerns for growers.”

Bouchard notes the lab has served academic and industry partners for close to five years, at roughly one-third the cost of commercial laboratories, and the move to SAWIC will mean the work can expand to additional compounds.

Resource for Maine’s aquaculture workforce

Maine’s aquaculture sector supports more than 1,720 jobs and generates more than $105.9 million in farm-gate sales, with projected demand for more than 1,300 additional workers over the next 15 years, UMaine says.

“The workforce piece is particularly important,” Bouchard says. “SAWIC is being developed in part to help build that workforce and create a clearer pathway from education and hands-on training into aquaculture careers.”

The $11 million facility will also host programming developed with outside partners, including community colleges, and K–12 schools and other organizations.

The project team for the building includes Scarborough-based Landry/French Construction and SMRT Architects & Engineers, based in Portland.