Group of one | Bob Baldacci launches Portland real estate development firm The Baldacci Group
Growing up, Bob Baldacci worked in Bangor at his family's Italian restaurant, Momma Baldacci's, alongside his brother, Maine Gov. John Baldacci. These days, Baldacci, 55, is putting the family name on his newest venture, The Baldacci Group.
The company is the continuation of Baldacci's 25-year career in real estate development that's taken him from Maine to the Caribbean to the British Isles. For the first time in years, Baldacci is on his own, running a development firm that he says has been a long time in the planning. "I've been in the business for a long time, and I wanted to do this sooner rather than later," he explains.
Baldacci's last entrepreneurial venture happened in the 90s, when he ran Baldacci Associates, a Bangor firm that developed projects like a medical office building for St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor and timeshare units in Ireland. But since 2002, Baldacci has been a hired gun, working as managing director of Pierce Atwood Consulting in Portland and vice president of development for Ocean Properties, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based development firm headed by billionaire Tom Walsh. Hanging out his own shingle, however, has always had particular appeal to Baldacci. "I like the flexibility of picking and choosing how I spend my time and where I spend my time," he says.
There are, however, challenges to launching a startup in the high-priced world of real estate development — namely, capital. Last year, for example, Ocean Properties was a suitor in high-profile negotiations with the City of Portland to develop the $100 million Maine State Pier project. The firm lost the project to Portland-based The Olympia Companies, but Baldacci says a key selling point of Ocean Properties' plan was that Walsh was willing to put up $100 million of his own money to make sure the project stayed on schedule. (Baldacci says he's no longer affiliated with Ocean Properties, but remains close with Walsh and doesn't rule out any future consulting work with the company.)
The Baldacci Group can't match those deep pockets, and Baldacci says he'll concentrate on acquiring and redeveloping existing properties, from hotels in New England to residential properties in Florida, rather than building from scratch. He also plans on taking advantage of incentives such as low-income tax credits or municipal bonds to cut the cost of certain projects. On the fundraising side, Baldacci says he's spoken to potential investors including New York brokers and hedge funds in Connecticut.
Though he won't go into specifics, he says The Baldacci Group has made offers on a "couple" of hotels in Massachusetts, and is negotiating to redevelop a 700-unit residential property in Jacksonville, Fla. Baldacci is confident that financing won't keep his company from getting a piece of the action.
Meanwhile, in addition to The Baldacci Group, Baldacci also has a side project, BCC Group, with partners George Campbell, a former Portland mayor and the recently named commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, and David Cohan, a local real estate developer. The group is evaluating projects in the Gulf Coast, the Caribbean and New England.
Still, Baldacci says his focus is on getting his company off the ground, albeit at his own pace. He's borrowing office space from The Liberty Group, a development firm owned by Michael Liberty, and doesn't see The Baldacci Group turning into a heavily staffed, high-overhead operation. There are no employees but Baldacci, and he says he's only got his eye on two potential hires: His 26-year-old son, Bobby, who works for Public Consulting Group in Boston, and his younger brother, John, who is in his second term as governor of Maine, since, he jokes, "John's going to be looking for a job in two and a half or three years from now."
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