Buyer signals confidence in industrial demand with deal for Gorham lot

An illlustration shows a building and parking lot.

Rendering / Courtesy Sebago Technics A rendering depicts Northland’s approved 80,000-square-foot building on Lot 1 in Gorham Industrial Park.

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By Laurie Schreiber

Even without an end-user signed on yet, the buyer of a 15.5-acre lot in Gorham Industrial Park is confident there’s plenty of demand for build-to-suit industrial space.

Northland Enterprises, a commercial real estate developer and manager in Portland, bought Lot 1 at Cyr Drive in the park from the town of Gorham for $1.11 million.

Mike Anderson of Malone Commercial Brokers brokered the deal.

“With our history of successful projects and portfolio, we try to have discussions with any large potential build-to-suit prospects with needs in southern Maine,” said Josh Benthien, Northland’s CEO and partner.

He said there are companies with larger space requirements that require upgrades like more loading docks, higher ceiling heights and on-site office space. Potential tenants could be regional or Maine-based firms, as well as national companies that have identified needs for a large modern facility in southern Maine.

“After looking at available vacancies, most realize there just aren’t many viable existing building options, which causes them to consider the ground-up development projects, which is what Northland has been so successful in completing” Benthien said.

The park

Gorham Industrial Park, on Route 25 near the Gorham/Westbrook line, is the fourth largest industrial park in southern Maine, encompassing over 325 acres of industrial zoned land and home to 62 tenants.

The original park has been consistently full, prompting the town to expand it in 2019, with the purchase of an additional 141 acres of neighboring land.

An aerial view shows woods and roads overlaid with outlines and words.

Photo / Courtesy Malone Commercial Brokers

Northland Enterprises bought the 15.5-acre Lot 1 in Gorham Industrial Park as a sign of confidence in the industrial market.

In August, the town agreed to sell Amazon 94 acres in the northern part of the expansion for $4 million, although the corporate giant must navigate local, state and possibly federal approvals processes before the deal can be finalized.

The southern section of the expansion was subdivided into five lots plus open space. Lot 2 went under contract with East Coast Communications and closed in July 2024, following construction of a new road into the subdivision. When the town first acquired the land, demand for industrial space was high.

But interest in lots fell off with the pandemic, and delays in state permitting pushed off completion of the new subdivision.

Catalyst

Northland’s purchase of Lot 1 in the southern section of the expansion could be a catalyst to attracting buyers to the remaining three lots in that section, said Anderson.

“Once they land a tenant for Lot 1, and with Amazon going to the north, I think there will really be some momentum for the remaining lots,” he said.

“It makes things easy for someone who wants to come in and put up a building,” said Anderson. “They just need to go through site plan approval with the town.”

Northland

Since 2001, Northland has developed and and taken ownership of more than 300,000 square feet of commercial properties in Maine. Northland’s projects include the Harvey Performance Co. facility in Gorham, the Clark Insurance Co. headquarters in Portland and a build-to-suit headquarters for Pack Edge Inc. in Saco.

Over the past five years, Benthien said, Northland has been working with a potential tenant who was looking for a build-to-suit, 80,000-square-foot specialty refrigerated warehouse and distribution center.

Photo / Courtesy Northland Enterprises

Josh Benthien

“It’s a very advanced, sophisticated building,” he said.

Northland came up with a site plan for Lot 1 while the town worked out infrastructure design and construction for that lot and the rest of the southern section.

Rising construction costs slowed the project. More recently, federal tariffs paused the client’s plans, said Benthien.

But he decided to move forward with the lot acquisition anyway.

“We were forced to say, ‘Will we buy this without our tenant?’” he said. “As we looked, we saw there just wasn’t anything available with permitting in place for a modern distribution or manufacturing facility of significant size in the greater Portland market.

“So we said, yes, we’ll buy the land without a sure tenant. And we’re confident we’ll find someone, or maybe two tenants, that we can do build-to-suit for on this site.”

Prospects

The lot is approved for an 80,000-square-foot industrial building with high ceilings, 21 loading docks and offices. The permit can be expanded to 100,000 square feet or more, he added.

“This could be a multi-tenant building for two users, but we will likely target one larger user who may need future growth flexibility,” he said.

For a building that size, Benthien said he expects his company’s investment could start at $17 million for a traditional high-bay warehouse building and go to $25 million for a more advanced temperature-controlled manufacturing or distribution facility.

Financing for the land purchase and the prospective build comes from Bangor Savings Bank and investor equity.

Benthien said he’s heard from a couple of prospects, if the first client falls through. But potential clients are continuing to closely monitor how tariffs, consumer demand and interest rates shake out, he said.

“If rates start to come down and tariff policy becomes more stable, I think some of the folks who have companies that need to expand, but have been on the fence, will reengage with more vigor,” he said.

Kevin Jensen, Gorham's economic development director, said Northland’s activity could be a catalyst to the success of the remaining lots in the park.

“The lots that are still available continue to garner a lot of interest,” Jensen said. “I think the more it gets out that Northland and their end-user client are coming into that new subdivision will only increase interest in the remaining lots.”

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