There’s nothing sexy about the rubber bottom of an L.L. Bean boot.

Leon Leonwood Bean’s signature footwear is made to stay dry in the muckiest conditions, from the deepest January snow to the slickest April mud. It’s a workhorse, perfect for Saturday’s morning trip to the dump, but just stylish enough for Sunday’s morning trip to church (weather permitting, of course).

It’s a symbol of Maine that’s manufactured in Maine. The leather uppers are crafted in Brunswick and, now, its rubber bottoms will be made in Lewiston.

L.L. Bean has inked a deal to lease vacant space in the Westminster Street industrial park, install about $1 million in equipment, and hire about a dozen Mainers to run it.

What’s special about it is its simplicity. Although the property is likely eligible for limited tax benefits, neither L.L. Bean nor the property owner said they were a factor.

A free-market deal, that’s about as old-fashioned as the Bean boot itself.

This doesn’t mean, however, organized economic development efforts are unappreciated. Our praise for L.L. Bean’s decision stems from an understanding that every once in awhile, it’s good to see the economy move measurably without a push from the public sector.

Lewiston-Auburn, for the past few years, has been equated with the movement of the “creative economy,” a nebulous descriptor intended as an umbrella for a catalog of technological and innovative industries, many of which with fancy prefixes ending in “O.”

Such as “bio” or “micro.” Things like that.

It’s just these grand initiatives sometimes disappoint. Since the governor’s creative economy conference in 2004 was held at the Bates Mill, much of the subsequent economic development around here hasn’t been creative.

The story is the same elsewhere across our sprawling section of Maine.

Take Rumford’s maligned technology center, for example. Its big news, announced recently during a meeting of its governing board, is the arrival of an accounting firm and, possibly, a dentistry practice, neither of which fit the stated vision of the beautiful – but egregiously expensive – facility.

Accounting firms and dentist offices could occupy space in Rumford’s downtown, not a taxpayer-subsidized “technology center.” Its management should be credited for drawing tenants, but at what cost?

Which gets back to L. L. Bean in Lewiston. It’s terrific news, in part, because there’s nothing special about it: a manufacturer needed a place to make its product, and a local person had the right property.

There might be nothing sexy about a Bean boot, but there’s plenty to love about that.