AUBURN – A commitment from Bisson Transportation Inc. to build a $13 million warehouse in a new Auburn industrial park made selling the plans to city councilors simple Monday night.
Bisson President Bob Cooper signed a letter of intent with the Auburn Business Development Corp. to make an international freight warehouse the centerpiece of a new industrial park south of the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport.
“This is a very important project for us and the city,” Cooper told councilors. “You really have a lot going for you with this project. You have access to rail, truck and air freight, the intermodal facility, customs, the city’s foreign trade zone.”
The City Council unanimously approved the plan to borrow $3 million to bring roads, sewer and water, electricity, natural gas, and other utility and infrastructure improvements to the 144 acres southwest of the airport and along the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad.
Councilors also agreed to create a tax increment financing, or TIF, district on the site. All new property tax revenues will be used to pay off the $3 million bond.
In turn, the Auburn Business Development Corp. will develop a 76-acre business park there. A group of 45 Auburn business owners and residents attended Monday’s meeting to urge councilors to sign on.
“It’s clear that if you build this, they will come,” said Kevin Fletcher, an Auburn real estate agent. “It’s also true that if you don’t build it, they will leave. We have lost local businesses to southern Maine, and that will continue if we don’t do something.”
Oxford Networks President Rick Anstey committed his company to bringing the company’s high-speed fiber optic computer and telephone network to the new business park.
“With the city’s investment and ours, the probability of success is high,” he said.
International trade
The city was granted Foreign Trade Zone status in October, and that fact helps the park, Cooper said. That zone lets manufacturers have raw materials shipped to them duty-free. They can then manufacture their goods and ship them to international customers duty-free.
Cooper said the park will allow Auburn to become a hub in international trade. He showed councilors a map that had Auburn connected to Montreal, Halifax and Vancouver via the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad and the Canadian National Railroad. Ships could then connect to ports around the world.
“The access to international ports from Auburn – little Auburn – is just tremendous,” Cooper said.
Cooper said his company planned to use the next six months to complete the plans, set a budget and come up with a design for a first 150,000-square-foot warehouse. Work would begin during the next six months. The company would plan to continue expanding until it had created 300,00 square feet of secure rail warehouse.
Paying for it
Bisson’s warehouse also makes paying for the park easier, according to acting Finance Director Laurie Smith.
Without Bisson’s plan, the city would need to pay between $864,000 and $1.27 million from other funds for the first nine to 12 years of the project. Property tax revenues from the TIF district would cover those costs afterwards and generate another $4 million.
Smith said the city could use money from other TIF districts to make up the difference.
However, there’s less to make up with Bisson involved. The company’s investment lowers the TIF deficit to between $34,000 and $371,000 over the first two to five years, depending on how aggressively the city decides to pay back the debt.
Smith said the city would choose a debt schedule, opting to pay off the debt faster and save more money, later this summer.
Comments are no longer available on this story