PORTLAND (AP) – L.L. Bean, fearing a shortage of qualified workers, has canceled plans to build a new call center in the FirstPark technology center in Oakland.

The outdoor outfitter re-evaluated the project after wireless communications provider T-Mobile announced last month that it will open a call center in the same business park and hire about 700 workers to staff it.

T-Mobile’s decision is “good news for the area . . . but it does compromise our ability perhaps to meet our peak needs,” said Rich Donaldson, a spokesman for Freeport-based Bean, said Thursday.

Gov. John Baldacci met with Bean officials Friday in a previously scheduled meeting that was intended to address the company’s concern over the size of the labor pool in the Waterville area.

The governor described the meeting as “productive,” Baldacci spokesman Lee Umphrey said.

“The governor is pleased with Bean’s commitment to the Waterville area and to Maine,” said Umphrey, adding that the administration will work with Beans to assess business trends and labor issues.

Bean already has about 220 year-round workers and about 800 seasonal call center employees in nearby Waterville. The new facility would have allowed them to add more, Donaldson said, but the T-Mobile call center represents “the new dynamic of uncertainty” for the availability of the region’s labor force.

In a memo to employees at Waterville, Bean said it planned an evaluation of its call center program that would include “the commitment to our year-round work force in Waterville as a given.”

Bean said it expects to complete its study by late January or February.

The company, which does most of its business by mail order and on the Internet, already has call centers in Lewiston and Portland with peak seasonal work forces totaling about 1,200.

“We’re not talking about any net reduction in … labor force in the state of Maine,” Donaldson said.