February 16, 2004
Greetings from Westbrook | A conversation with Erik Carson, Westbrook's new economic and community development director
By Chris Churchill
Westbrook likes to think of itself as a city on the move. And Erik Carson, its new economic and community development director, is going along for the ride, hoping he can help this city of nearly 17,000 transform itself from an erstwhile manufacturing powerhouse to a community with a modern, diversified economy.
To be sure, Westbrook has attracted its share of attention recently for its economic successes. Core Inc., a disability reinsurance firm, is building a 135,000-square-foot office building downtown, across the street from the Dana Warp Mill, which will house 400 workers. Spring Harbor Hospital is about to bring 100 jobs to a new building off Exit 7A as part of its move from South Portland. Idexx, the large biotech firm, has rejected offers to relocate to other communities, including Portland, and has added a 5,000-square-foot expansion. As part of a plan to make its downtown more user-friendly, Westbrook is continuing with the development of its Riverwalk, a boardwalk along the Presumpscot River, which runs through the center of town. In many respects, the aggressiveness with which the city is pursuing its reinvention is a model for other communities in Maine, ones that are trying to redefine themselves as manufacturing jobs, once the staple of the state's economy, continue to slip away.
Carson, 49 and a New Jersey native, arrived in Westbrook four months ago, when the city's reinvention efforts were already well underway. He left a job in the private sector, helping guide telecommunications firms through cell phone tower permitting, for a return to the public sector. He's worked previously for the Maine State Planning Office and the Department of Economic and Community Development. He lives with his family in Yarmouth, and has a master's degree in planning from Cornell University.
Why come to Westbrook?
Westbrook is a great city. It was a diamond in the rough, and now it's starting to glisten. Once the pulp operations [at Sappi] went away, there was a shift. As more and more manufacturing jobs were lost, there was a substantive shift. And now with having an updated comprehensive plan and an updated zoning ordinance, there's just tremendous opportunity. We've had $27 million [in new investment] in the last year, and I'm looking at at least that much for this year. I think we're on a roll.
What kind of shifts are you talking about? A shift in public perception?
There's a recognition that Westbrook has often not been considered for a lot of different types of development. Now it's a lot more attractive.
We have some substantially important investment downtown. With the Riverwalk, there's recognition of that linkage with the river. There are property owners downtown that now have an interest in maximizing their land use. It's also a shift from manufacturing to the business and service sector, which is happening statewide. In many ways Westbrook is a microcosm of that.
You have Core Inc. building a large structure and a 500-car garage along the river, and it's so rare to see something of that size under construction in a Maine downtown, with the exception of Portland.
Right. There was this perspective that you had a small number of cities where things could happen, and for a long time Westbrook didn't consider itself able to do that. With the Core building going up and with 400 people coming to work there, you have the recognition that there is significant opportunity downtown. We have two restaurants that are looking into moving in. There's a recognition that because you have 400 new people you need to provide services. And that, I think, is how the downtown is going to prosper. That's the big-picture change.
Downtown Westbrook has lost some of the look of a traditional downtown, because of the urban renewal that took place here. What's left for you to work with?
We lost a good number of architecturally significant buildings. But what's still great about the downtown is that you have a mix. You have residential, you have business. It's all walkable, which is tremendously important. Because of the mix, you have the opportunity for a lot of different uses and a lot of different kinds of economic situations to occur.
The Presumpscot seems really central to the downtown revitalization. Is it considered a big amenity?
Yes. It's an important river for the city, and the city and those along it have worked hard to increase its value. The ability to have a trail along both sides of the river would be a tremendous enhancement. The other thing we have is the Riverbank Park, and to have that downtown on the river is tremendously important. There's a lot of recreational activity that we are trying to make good use of, because it gives people a chance to take advantage of being downtown.
Would you be seeing the investment you're seeing now if the city hadn't begun public projects like the Riverwalk?
I think the Riverwalk is an important amenity. But I think a lot of the things that happened were beyond our control by virtue of what Sappi had to do for its own business interests ˆ the fact that the pulp making went away.
The pulp making that was malodorous and that tended to define the city.
Right, and once that went away [in 1999], people began to see Westbrook in a very different way.
Can Westbrook's success be replicated elsewhere, or is it due to the city's proximity to Portland?
At first you might think it's working because it's next to Portland, that the success is spilling over. But I also think that one of the reasons the Core building was able to be built was being able to use brownfields money from the Environmental Protection Agency for assessment and then cleanup. We have a number of other properties that we've assessed for brownfields. We now have a $900,000 revolving loan fund, and the payments from that will allow us to provide revolving loans to businesses for cleanup. You get that kind of marriage of different grants and programs. An amount like $200,000 allows you to leverage a $16 million investment because you've cleaned up a site.
So that's something other cities could do.
Right. The EPA brownfields grants are very valuable in that regard.
Do you think Westbrook has been more aggressive in going after grants than other cities?
I think we've been more successful. And I think having a comprehensive plan, a downtown revitalization plan and an open space plan that we're working on tends to help you be recognized for being active and being successful. One of the things that we work very hard on is having a good process with developers for having projects reviewed, having projects inspected. I think that a piece of the success is that we work very, very hard on customer service. By way of comparison, we had $161,000 in building permits issued within the last year, and it generated $27 million worth of construction. There's a constant multiplier like that. And the economy has started to recognize smaller communities like this.
What's your vision of what downtown should look like 20 years down the road?
People out on the street. Movement. Cars, or by then maybe hovercraft. Bicycles. Busy sidewalks. A broad range of stores. Retail on the first floor, offices on the second floor, residential uses on the third floor, where it's possible. The ability to walk to work. The kinds of retail that we're going to need are going to be much more service oriented.
Speaking of which, you've got a Wal-Mart coming to town.
We have a Wal-Mart that is being considered. There's been some presumption that when they entered into their contract for the property that that was it. But it's going to require a zone change from the city council, and there's planning board review. There are a number of steps yet to go.
And would Wal-Mart be good for the city?
How to you define good?
Would it threaten any of your hopes for downtown?
I don't think so, because they're different kinds of retail. You don't go to Wal-Mart to buy a suit that needs tailoring, for instance. It's different, and we're trying to create enough need in the downtown for a different kind of retail, whether Wal-Mart comes or not. You've got the mall, you've got shopping centers, so trying to recreate that [kind of retail] downtown is not what we need to do. It's a whole different scale. It's much more service oriented, it's much more pedestrian oriented.
Does having a planning degree influence how you go about this job?
I think so. You can come at this from strictly a business perspective or strictly a planning perspective. But my work in the private sector was also very valuable because it gave me a really good understanding of the cost of doing business. And I'm a pragmatist anyway, and my perspective is that if it's a permitted use, then you ought to be able to do it. That's the attitude the city has.
So you'd consider that a very pro-business attitude?
I don't know. If you say pro-business, then people say, "Oh my God, that means we're going to back trucks up and fill in the wetlands." And that's not it at all. We're pro-development, but development in places where it fits with the comprehensive plan, where it's efficient for use of municipal services and where it doesn't cause conflict. By that way, you can serve two masters ˆ one being the business process, and one being the planning process.
What about housing? The cost of housing in the city has gone up dramatically in recent years.
The cost of housing in the state has gone up. The median house sale cost in the city is $165,000 or $169,000. That's not terribly affordable, and I think we're seeing that all over the region. If affordability keeps pushing people further away, then to a certain degree you cease to have affordability anywhere because the cost of driving, for instance, from a half-hour away begins to negate the savings for the house.
Are Westbrook's demographics changing as a result?
I don't think so. The demographics of the city reflect the demographics of the state in general. We're aging, but we're actively seeking and beginning to see younger people, in their late 20s or early 30s, start to move here. That's one of the things we want to do. Ten years ago [people in Westbrook] were worried about providing affordable housing for those making $20,000-$25,000 a year. Now we're trying to deal with affordable housing for those making $40,000 a year. We need to keep shifting the affordability up to where the economy is, but also to create opportunities for home ownership in locations where you can minimize cost. One of the ways you can minimize cost is provide affordable housing in the downtown so people can walk to work. To live where you work is in many ways the ultimate goal. Right now the majority of Westbrook residents work elsewhere.
Westbrook has always been thought of as a blue-collar town. Is it still that way, or is that perception not accurate?
You had a mill and that's where everybody worked. But I think it is beginning to change. We want to encourage a broader array of business development. I have a research and development firm that's looking to move downtown. If you got a business like that downtown, you get a business to assist them downtown, and you start to put together this patchwork.
You've had some bad news recently, too. You've had layoffs at Sappi and the closing of Sebago, the shoe maker.
Yeah, and those are really unfortunate. But that's exactly the kind of situation that we have to be in a position to deal with. We've lost 3,200 jobs since 1998. We've lost more jobs than we've gained. But we've gained different kinds, and that's the main point. We're trying to shift from focusing on manufacturing to focusing on diversifying.
Which makes you like nearly every city in Maine.
Right. We've gone from 45% of our tax base being reliant on Sappi and SD Warren to 5%. Which is very important. The more we can continue to create new sector jobs and get away from the reliance on manufacturing, the better.
Will manufacturing always be a piece of the puzzle here?
I think so. I don't ever want it to disappear. It's an important part of the city's history.
Do you have many artists or craftspeople moving into the city and working in the old mill buildings?
We have a significant number of woodworkers who have space in the Dana Warp Mill, who produce fine furniture and cabinets. That mill has served as an incubator. Businesses go in, they grow, they take over some more space and they outgrow that.
And do they stay in the city?
Well, that's my job ˆ to make sure they do.
To be sure, Westbrook has attracted its share of attention recently for its economic successes. Core Inc., a disability reinsurance firm, is building a 135,000-square-foot office building downtown, across the street from the Dana Warp Mill, which will house 400 workers. Spring Harbor Hospital is about to bring 100 jobs to a new building off Exit 7A as part of its move from South Portland. Idexx, the large biotech firm, has rejected offers to relocate to other communities, including Portland, and has added a 5,000-square-foot expansion. As part of a plan to make its downtown more user-friendly, Westbrook is continuing with the development of its Riverwalk, a boardwalk along the Presumpscot River, which runs through the center of town. In many respects, the aggressiveness with which the city is pursuing its reinvention is a model for other communities in Maine, ones that are trying to redefine themselves as manufacturing jobs, once the staple of the state's economy, continue to slip away.
Carson, 49 and a New Jersey native, arrived in Westbrook four months ago, when the city's reinvention efforts were already well underway. He left a job in the private sector, helping guide telecommunications firms through cell phone tower permitting, for a return to the public sector. He's worked previously for the Maine State Planning Office and the Department of Economic and Community Development. He lives with his family in Yarmouth, and has a master's degree in planning from Cornell University.
Why come to Westbrook?
Westbrook is a great city. It was a diamond in the rough, and now it's starting to glisten. Once the pulp operations [at Sappi] went away, there was a shift. As more and more manufacturing jobs were lost, there was a substantive shift. And now with having an updated comprehensive plan and an updated zoning ordinance, there's just tremendous opportunity. We've had $27 million [in new investment] in the last year, and I'm looking at at least that much for this year. I think we're on a roll.
What kind of shifts are you talking about? A shift in public perception?
There's a recognition that Westbrook has often not been considered for a lot of different types of development. Now it's a lot more attractive.
We have some substantially important investment downtown. With the Riverwalk, there's recognition of that linkage with the river. There are property owners downtown that now have an interest in maximizing their land use. It's also a shift from manufacturing to the business and service sector, which is happening statewide. In many ways Westbrook is a microcosm of that.
You have Core Inc. building a large structure and a 500-car garage along the river, and it's so rare to see something of that size under construction in a Maine downtown, with the exception of Portland.
Right. There was this perspective that you had a small number of cities where things could happen, and for a long time Westbrook didn't consider itself able to do that. With the Core building going up and with 400 people coming to work there, you have the recognition that there is significant opportunity downtown. We have two restaurants that are looking into moving in. There's a recognition that because you have 400 new people you need to provide services. And that, I think, is how the downtown is going to prosper. That's the big-picture change.
Downtown Westbrook has lost some of the look of a traditional downtown, because of the urban renewal that took place here. What's left for you to work with?
We lost a good number of architecturally significant buildings. But what's still great about the downtown is that you have a mix. You have residential, you have business. It's all walkable, which is tremendously important. Because of the mix, you have the opportunity for a lot of different uses and a lot of different kinds of economic situations to occur.
The Presumpscot seems really central to the downtown revitalization. Is it considered a big amenity?
Yes. It's an important river for the city, and the city and those along it have worked hard to increase its value. The ability to have a trail along both sides of the river would be a tremendous enhancement. The other thing we have is the Riverbank Park, and to have that downtown on the river is tremendously important. There's a lot of recreational activity that we are trying to make good use of, because it gives people a chance to take advantage of being downtown.
Would you be seeing the investment you're seeing now if the city hadn't begun public projects like the Riverwalk?
I think the Riverwalk is an important amenity. But I think a lot of the things that happened were beyond our control by virtue of what Sappi had to do for its own business interests ˆ the fact that the pulp making went away.
The pulp making that was malodorous and that tended to define the city.
Right, and once that went away [in 1999], people began to see Westbrook in a very different way.
Can Westbrook's success be replicated elsewhere, or is it due to the city's proximity to Portland?
At first you might think it's working because it's next to Portland, that the success is spilling over. But I also think that one of the reasons the Core building was able to be built was being able to use brownfields money from the Environmental Protection Agency for assessment and then cleanup. We have a number of other properties that we've assessed for brownfields. We now have a $900,000 revolving loan fund, and the payments from that will allow us to provide revolving loans to businesses for cleanup. You get that kind of marriage of different grants and programs. An amount like $200,000 allows you to leverage a $16 million investment because you've cleaned up a site.
So that's something other cities could do.
Right. The EPA brownfields grants are very valuable in that regard.
Do you think Westbrook has been more aggressive in going after grants than other cities?
I think we've been more successful. And I think having a comprehensive plan, a downtown revitalization plan and an open space plan that we're working on tends to help you be recognized for being active and being successful. One of the things that we work very hard on is having a good process with developers for having projects reviewed, having projects inspected. I think that a piece of the success is that we work very, very hard on customer service. By way of comparison, we had $161,000 in building permits issued within the last year, and it generated $27 million worth of construction. There's a constant multiplier like that. And the economy has started to recognize smaller communities like this.
What's your vision of what downtown should look like 20 years down the road?
People out on the street. Movement. Cars, or by then maybe hovercraft. Bicycles. Busy sidewalks. A broad range of stores. Retail on the first floor, offices on the second floor, residential uses on the third floor, where it's possible. The ability to walk to work. The kinds of retail that we're going to need are going to be much more service oriented.
Speaking of which, you've got a Wal-Mart coming to town.
We have a Wal-Mart that is being considered. There's been some presumption that when they entered into their contract for the property that that was it. But it's going to require a zone change from the city council, and there's planning board review. There are a number of steps yet to go.
And would Wal-Mart be good for the city?
How to you define good?
Would it threaten any of your hopes for downtown?
I don't think so, because they're different kinds of retail. You don't go to Wal-Mart to buy a suit that needs tailoring, for instance. It's different, and we're trying to create enough need in the downtown for a different kind of retail, whether Wal-Mart comes or not. You've got the mall, you've got shopping centers, so trying to recreate that [kind of retail] downtown is not what we need to do. It's a whole different scale. It's much more service oriented, it's much more pedestrian oriented.
Does having a planning degree influence how you go about this job?
I think so. You can come at this from strictly a business perspective or strictly a planning perspective. But my work in the private sector was also very valuable because it gave me a really good understanding of the cost of doing business. And I'm a pragmatist anyway, and my perspective is that if it's a permitted use, then you ought to be able to do it. That's the attitude the city has.
So you'd consider that a very pro-business attitude?
I don't know. If you say pro-business, then people say, "Oh my God, that means we're going to back trucks up and fill in the wetlands." And that's not it at all. We're pro-development, but development in places where it fits with the comprehensive plan, where it's efficient for use of municipal services and where it doesn't cause conflict. By that way, you can serve two masters ˆ one being the business process, and one being the planning process.
What about housing? The cost of housing in the city has gone up dramatically in recent years.
The cost of housing in the state has gone up. The median house sale cost in the city is $165,000 or $169,000. That's not terribly affordable, and I think we're seeing that all over the region. If affordability keeps pushing people further away, then to a certain degree you cease to have affordability anywhere because the cost of driving, for instance, from a half-hour away begins to negate the savings for the house.
Are Westbrook's demographics changing as a result?
I don't think so. The demographics of the city reflect the demographics of the state in general. We're aging, but we're actively seeking and beginning to see younger people, in their late 20s or early 30s, start to move here. That's one of the things we want to do. Ten years ago [people in Westbrook] were worried about providing affordable housing for those making $20,000-$25,000 a year. Now we're trying to deal with affordable housing for those making $40,000 a year. We need to keep shifting the affordability up to where the economy is, but also to create opportunities for home ownership in locations where you can minimize cost. One of the ways you can minimize cost is provide affordable housing in the downtown so people can walk to work. To live where you work is in many ways the ultimate goal. Right now the majority of Westbrook residents work elsewhere.
Westbrook has always been thought of as a blue-collar town. Is it still that way, or is that perception not accurate?
You had a mill and that's where everybody worked. But I think it is beginning to change. We want to encourage a broader array of business development. I have a research and development firm that's looking to move downtown. If you got a business like that downtown, you get a business to assist them downtown, and you start to put together this patchwork.
You've had some bad news recently, too. You've had layoffs at Sappi and the closing of Sebago, the shoe maker.
Yeah, and those are really unfortunate. But that's exactly the kind of situation that we have to be in a position to deal with. We've lost 3,200 jobs since 1998. We've lost more jobs than we've gained. But we've gained different kinds, and that's the main point. We're trying to shift from focusing on manufacturing to focusing on diversifying.
Which makes you like nearly every city in Maine.
Right. We've gone from 45% of our tax base being reliant on Sappi and SD Warren to 5%. Which is very important. The more we can continue to create new sector jobs and get away from the reliance on manufacturing, the better.
Will manufacturing always be a piece of the puzzle here?
I think so. I don't ever want it to disappear. It's an important part of the city's history.
Do you have many artists or craftspeople moving into the city and working in the old mill buildings?
We have a significant number of woodworkers who have space in the Dana Warp Mill, who produce fine furniture and cabinets. That mill has served as an incubator. Businesses go in, they grow, they take over some more space and they outgrow that.
And do they stay in the city?
Well, that's my job ˆ to make sure they do.
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