LEWISTON – New jobs, new tax revenue and a new phase in a joint venture between the city and private developers will be revealed today.
City officials will join members of the Gendron family to announce the first tenant in the Gendron Business Park off Alfred Plourde Parkway. Names and details will be released today, but it is known that plans call for the construction of a 100,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution building for a company new to Maine. About 25 jobs are expected.
“The park hasn’t been around that long,” said Greg Mitchell, assistant city administrator. “It’s a credit to the council and mayor for having the foresight to lay the foundation (for this project). Further proof that if you build it, they will come.”
The Planning Board approved the park in the summer of 2003, but specific lot developments were approved just last fall. The first phase encompasses about eight acres, out of 43 acres total.
The Gendron park was part of a swap the city arranged four years ago when it was negotiating the Wal-Mart distribution center. The Gendrons agreed to sell land to the city that it needed to seal the Wal-Mart deal. In exchange, the city promised to bring roads, water, drainage and power into the park.
Mitchell said revenue from the distribution center will retire the $850,000 debt associated with the first phase of the Gendron project.
“So no cost to the taxpayer,” said Mitchell.
The agreement between the city and the Gendrons says that once Phase 1 of the park is complete – four lots and 100,000 square feet developed – the city is obligated to bring infrastructure to Phase 2, using the revenue from Phase 1 tenants to pay for it.
“I expect they’ll reach that threshold by the end of the year,” said Mitchell. “That’s my prediction.”
One industrial-style building of approximately 33,000 square feet has already gone up at the site. A tenant has been lined up for it, but not announced.
A second site has already been cleared for a 30,000-square-foot building, but construction has not begun.
Although the park falls within a designated Pine Tree Zone, the state-backed tax incentive program was not a factor in landing the warehouse tenant that will be announced today.
“It could be with others, but it was not an incentive with this tenant,” said Lincoln Jeffers, economic development director.
The announcement will be made at the Gendron Drive site at 1 p.m.
Comments are no longer available on this story