Without people, Maine businesses can't grow
At a recent Mainebiz “On the Road” event, I asked participants in our roundtable, "What's more important, attracting businesses or attracting people?"
Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling, who was part of the roundtable discussion, made the point that without people, businesses won't get started and won't grow. The days of the major employer — the paper mill that attracts thousands of employees to a town — are gone, he argues.
That brings me to another meeting — and the focus of one of our stories in this issue.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with developer Jonathan Arnold, who redeveloped the Mill at Dover-Foxcroft and plans to resuscitate an old sardine cannery in Eastport with a hotel, residential units, retail and dining.
The population of Dover-Foxcroft is 4,213; Eastport has 1,293 people.
A question any business owner in Maine might ask is, Will there be enough people and potential customers to sustain this business?
Arnold is not one to be deterred. He's the principal of Arnold Development Group, a Kansas City, Mo.-based firm that is also developing 2nd and Delaware, a $70 million, 330,000-square-foot complex with 276 housing units and ground floor retail and dining space in the city's River Market neighborhood. Kansas City's population is 467,000 and the region has 2.16 million people — more than Maine and Vermont combined.
In “Field of Dreams,” farmer Ray Kinsella heard a voice that told him, “If you build it they will come,” and in the past three decades it's become a well-used cliché.
But Arnold has great faith in Maine. As a kid, he attended Maine Wilderness Camp on Deer Isle. The camp had an outpost in the North Woods — and he was smitten. Arnold's parents live in Topsham. His wife Erin says she expects they'll retire here one day. More than that, Jonathan Arnold is convincing investors to back him here.
He's created a Sustainable City Fund LLC to find investors for the Arnold Development projects. Berkshire Hathaway has been an investor in the firm's work in Kansas City.
In Dover-Foxcroft, Arnold took over the former Mayo Mill, what had more recently been operated by Moosehead Manufacturing Co. Inc. It was 60,000 square feet of broken windows, rotted wood and leaky roofs. CEI and Maine Community Foundation were backers on the $12 million makeover. The Mayo Mill at Dover-Foxcroft now has 22 apartments, an inn, a café and 22,000 square feet devoted to small businesses.
The rents are cheap and one tenant who moved from Connecticut has both a business location and an apartment overlooking the Piscataquis River.
Dover-Foxcroft and Eastport are three hours apart. There's no direct route. Dover-Foxcroft is like other Maine “twin cities” built around a river — Lewiston-Auburn, Saco-Biddeford — where the mills no longer hum with the same manufacturing activity, but where new growth is apparent. Eastport saw the decline of the sardine industry, but as I have said before in this space, its downtown has great bones — brick buildings that were built to last. Arnold plans to invest $9 million on the former cannery and up to that amount on additional ground-up residential construction.
As Strimling said, we can't wait for a major employer to be a savior, but we can attract new residents.
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