Image / Google Maps
FirstPark Commerce and Technology Center is on the Oakland-Waterville line, right off Exit 127 of Interstate 95. The red dot shows the location.
November 3, 2020
FirstPark in Oakland officially 'pays off the mortgage'
Photo / Maureen Milliken
FirstPark, in Oakland, has paid off the 20-year bond that established the park in 1999.
By Maureen Milliken
FirstPark's origin story started with a meeting of Augusta and Waterville-area business leaders at Thomas College, and was capped with a planning lunch in New York City at the Windows on the World at the World Trade Center in late 2000.
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FirstPark Commerce & Technology Center, in Oakland, officially made the final bond payment of $256,722 to the Maine Municipal Bond Bank this week, "paying off the mortgage" on the 285-acre campus.
The payment marks the end of the 20-year $3.5 million loan. In all, 24 Maine municipalities collaborated on building the business park as a future source of tax revenue and way to create jobs.
The park was overseen by the Kennebec Regional Development Authority, which represents 24 cities and towns in Somerset and Kennebec counties, and was established by the Maine Legislature in 1999.
"This an exciting and historic day in FirstPark's history," said Jim Dinkle, FirstPark executive director.
"The one-of-a-kind partnership that created the idea for the business park 20 years ago was really forward thinking. Simply put, if more businesses or corporations buy and develop land at FirstPark, the communities that have invested in the park will see more money coming to their community."
The final payment was made in October, but officially went on the books this week. FirstPark and the Maine Municipal Bond Bank marked the occasion with a recent check ceremony.
Terry Hayes, executive director of the bond bank, said, "It may be a while before we have the personal experience of paying off our mortgage, but essentially that's what this equates to."
She said the significant upfront investment that was made to establish FirstPark set it up for success.
"The investment and business park provided an invitation to a variety of business types to come locate here and all the benefits that come from that," Hayes said. "Now the resources that went into paying the debt can be redirected to improvements here in the park and the communities that made the investment 20 years ago."
The communities hung in for some slow years — the park was just beginning to pick up momentum when the Great Recession hit in 2008. Since Dinkle was hired in November 2017, the park has been more aggressive with marketing and other initiatives. Earlier this year, FirstPark hired SVN | The Urbanek Group Advisors as the official commercial and industrial real estate broker for the business park. The 12 undeveloped lots on the 22-lot campus are listed at $15,000 an acre.
Dinkle told Mainebiz in September that one effect still being felt from the recession is the lack of spec construction. He said a high absorption rate for industrial buildings, driven in part by the burgeoning cannabis industry in the area, makes lack of that type of building in the area an issue. There's a definite need, he feels.
"If they built them, they would be sold. They will come," he said.
Plans for the future include residential
T-Mobile is the anchor tenant, established at the park in 2005, and largest building in the park. The 80,000-square-foot building and its 26 acres was sold earlier this year to Portland commercial property development company J.B. Brown & Sons for $10.7 million. T-Mobile's lease expires in 2027.
Other businesses that own property at the business park include Bioenergetic Healing, Gateway Financial Partners, Northern Light Podiatry, L.L.Bean, MaineGeneral, Maine Medical Partners, Maine Eye Doctors, One River CPAs, Waterville Community Dental Center and SurgiCare.
Interest in the park has grown in the past couple years, including a visit from Kim Yonghyon, consul general of the Republic of Korea in Boston. The park's board plans to sell more lots, or the entire campus.
Dinkle said attributes that make the park attractive to entrepreneurs and business owners include shovel-ready lots, protective covenants, infrastructure and its location in a foreign trade zone. The park is on the Waterville-Oakland line, and next to Exit 127 of Interstate 295. Real estate options include high-speed fiber and pre-permitted sites that have the park poised for growth in the next three years.
In the year ahead, the park is expected to make more investments, including increased marketing, exploration of residential options and creating a community dog park, all designed to attract more interest in the campus.
Residential development would be on two large lots at the back of the property that have some challenges, including wetlands, a vernal pool and a Central Maine Power Co. easement. When FirstPark was first developed in 2000, residential wasn't part of the plan, but the KRDA in 2018 updated its covenant to allow it on lots 11 and 12, at the northwest end of the property.
Kennebec Regional Development Authority towns and cities are Anson, Benton, Canaan, China, Clinton, Cornville, Fairfield, Farmingdale, Gardiner, Hartland, Manchester, Norridgewock, Oakland, Palmyra, Pittsfield, Readfield, Rome, Sidney, Smithfield, Solon, Starks, St. Albans, Waterville and Winslow.
FirstPark started with a conversation at Thomas College
In October, as the Kennebec Regional Development Authority made its final payment on a 20-year bond to the Maine Bond Bank, FirstPark's first treasurer, Mike Byron, reminisced about how it all started:
"During 1999, about a dozen members of the Augusta and Waterville chambers convened at Thomas College in Waterville to collaborate on fostering economic development in central Maine," Byron said in an email to FirstPark officials after the payment was made. "We decided to establish what was then known as a super [business] park.
"Several of us flew down to New York City to raise start-up capital. We had a strategy meeting over lunch at Windows on the World, 107 stories up in the World Trade Center. By the way, 9/11 occurred 10 months later. After the meeting, we met with Moody's Investment to persuade that rating service to give our proposed FirstPark's $3.5 million infrastructure bond an investment grade rating. They did, a major achievement for a bond structure, which had no precedent — 24 FirstPark partner towns had pledged their taxing authority, guaranteeing the bond payments. When the business park opened in 2000, I was appointed as the original treasurer."
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