Westbrook could soon be in a better position to attract more businesses.
The city is hoping to establish a Pine Tree Development Zone for the Warren Avenue industrial district, an area of about 350 acres that includes the Sappi Fine Paper property.
The Pine Tree Development Zone initiative is a state program created in 2003 to establish zones in depressed areas across the state where certain businesses can receive tax incentives to encourage economic development in those areas.
The Westbrook City Council voted unanimously Monday night to establish the zone, and the city is expecting final word from the state by February.
According to City Administrator Jerre Bryant, all benefits to businesses would come from the state. “It would not change any local tax issues,” he said at Monday’s city council meeting.
Erik Carson, Westbrook’s director of Economic and Community Development, said the designation would make the land more attractive to businesses as a place to locate.
“It can only add value to properties that are there,” Carson said Monday.
Barry Stemm, chief engineer at the mill, said the company shared Carson’s view.
“The mill would recommend supporting (the move),” he told the council. Stemm went on to say that he thought the designation would help bring cutting-edge technologies to Westbrook, which would help keep Westbrook’s youth in the area by providing them with good jobs.
“(It would) breathe some new life into the area,” said Stemm.
Carson said he has already spoken with a couple of businesses that would be interested in locating to Westbrook’s Pine Tree Development Zone if the city succeeds with its application.
“The beauty of this is, we are already seeing businesses interested in anticipation of this,” said Carson.
Carson said Monday that Bryant had sent a letter to the owners of the 29 parcels of land in the industrial district inviting them to meet. He said three responded and met with him and Bryant, and all three were in favor of having the area placed in the zone.
The types of businesses targeted include financial services, manufacturing and those in seven cutting-edge technologies in which the state is attempting to encourage growth, such as biotechnology, composites and information technology.
“The whole point of the zone is to provide tax incentives and benefits to businesses in those seven targeted industries, to replace old-growth manufacturing with emerging technologies and new-growth manufacturing,” said Carson in an interview last week.
To qualify for the benefits of the program, businesses must be new businesses without employees or, in effect, be start-up businesses, according to Carson.
To qualify as a Pine Tree Development Zone, an area must have an unemployment rate that is higher than the state average or an average weekly wage below the state average. An area can also qualify if it has experienced a 5 percent loss of population or work force in the previous three years because of businesses departing, or a loss of at least 500 workers in the previous five years.
Westbrook qualifies because of employment cutbacks at the Sappi mill, whose work force has gone from about 3,500 to about 350 in recent years.
The area the city is seeking to have designated is bordered by Cumberland Street and Park Road and includes properties along Warren Avenue.
If included, the district would be part of the Southern Maine Pine Tree Zone, which includes 15 communities. The Southern Maine Pine Tree Zone is one of eight districts throughout Maine established by the program in the fall of 2004. Those eight districts incorporate 30,000 acres in over 100 municipalities.
For the Warren Avenue industrial zone to be included in the regional Pine Tree Development Zone, eight of the 15 communities participating in the zone must approve , according to Carson. If approved by the communities, the Maine Department of Economic Development would give the final approval. Carson said he thought a decision would be made by the communities in the zone by the end of the year and Westbrook would hear back from the state by February.
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