FORT FAIRFIELD — Federal and state heads of Rural Economic and Community Development were among those turning over the first shovelfuls of dirt at a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday morning for a $609,000 housing complex.

The 10-unit complex will be built next year on the corner of Columbia and Elm streets, after Hacker Elementary School is torn down. The complex will house people who are elderly, handicapped and physically disabled.

Scott Seabury, town manager, said the housing project was a welcome positive event in the town. He recalled problems in the potato industry, along with unemployment caused by the closing of Loring Air Force Base and the several million dollars in damages from 1994 spring flooding.

Corey Solman, an owner of the housing project, said he appreciated the town’s support.

Seth Bradstreet, state director of the RECD, said federal building projects for the poor and elderly funded by his agency’s programs would be significantly impaired by federal cuts planned in Medicare.

While in Aroostook County, Bradstreet and Maureen Kennedy of Washington, D.C., administrator of the RECD, also talked to staff members going through the transition from Farmers Home Administration to the RECD and to a statewide group working on multi-family housing projects.

Earlier in the day they met in Presque Isle with congressional staff and two Aroostook County growers who plan to open a diversified potato processing plant.

Rodney McCrum of Mars Hill and Francis Fitzpatrick of Houlton have proposed a $5 to $6 million facility to prepare and package fresh potatoes.

The RECD officials were impressed with the plan by the two farmers to make value-added products that will aid county growers and workers.

The greater Fort Fairfield-Presque Isle-Caribou region is the most concentrated area of any one commodity (potatoes) grown anywhere in the world, said Bradstreet.

The growers’ plan, well-researched and involving collaboration with state government, was the result of leadership abilities the county will have to rely on to get the local economy moving, the officials said.

The “double whammy” of base closing and agriculture problems were more serious in an area as isolated as Aroostook, said Kennedy. The potato-based project involves job creation in an area more vulnerable to economic ups and downs than one with more diversification, she added.

Leadership can make a difference between a stagnant or declining economy or one that is successful, said Kennedy.

“It seems to me that there is a tremendous amount of commitment to the county, quality relationships built over a long time, and a very invigorated, optimistic leadership here, with a lot of interest in building it (the county) up,” she said.