March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Van Baalen to expand on current property> Plan dropped to swap land with Fisher

ROCKLAND — The Van Baalen Co. will expand on its current industrial park site now that a complicated land swap with Fisher Engineering has been dropped.

Van Baalen President Larry Ingram said Friday the swap idea had been dropped after the two city firms could not agree on land appraisals.

The clothing firm has been in the city since 1939 and has enjoyed the explosive growth of its Nautica Clothing line and other labels, creating a need for more space.

Fisher, which manufactures snowplows, has a plant on the city waterfront, but also has land at the city industrial park earmarked for future use. Van Baalen offered to swap its current 145,000-square-foot building for Fisher’s waterfront and industrial park holdings. In a friendly decision, the firms agreed they could not come to terms on the relative values of the properties.

There has been speculation that Fisher’s waterfront property would be a prime development site if the snowplow manufacturer decided to move to the industrial park.

The best solution for Van Baalen would have been a new, carefully designed structure of 400,000 square feet with the latest in computers and automation. But the expansion plan at the current site will solve immediate space needs. The expansion site will include a complete gutting of the current structure, with a 90,000-square-foot, multilevel expansion. The expansion plans are on the drawing board now.

“We will start construction just as soon as humanly possible,” said Ingram. The completion date has been set for December 1995.

Once completed, the project will create enough working space for the immediate future. But the firm has experienced such unprecedented growth that it could be seeking more space.

The expansion plans require the purchase of 3-4 acres from neighbors Central Maine Power and Interstate Septic Service to be used for a new exit onto Gordon Drive. The expansion will create additional high tech positions at the clothing firm, which now employs more than 160 people.

The city is thrilled with the new expansion, since the clothing firm announced in February that it was investigating a move to warmer climates. Since most of its product comes into the country on the West Coast, a production center in the northeast makes little sense, officials said. The firm said Maine’s taxation schemes also worked against the firm.

Faced with the loss of 160-plus jobs, the city and state got together to develop favorable tax breaks to induce the firm to remain. The city agreed to sponsor a $500,000 grant request for Community Development funds to aid the firm in land acquisitions.

City Manager Cathy Sleeper said the answer on the grant request could be received by Jan. 6.


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