SCI occupies first business condominium at Hermon’s Freedom Park

HERMON — Enterprise Zone 19, the first business condominium at Freedom Park for Commerce and Industry in Hermon, has been occupied by Simply Computing Inc., a growing company that opened six years ago with no business accounts and today serves more than 400 clients from coast to coast.

The business condominium at 19 Freedom Parkway was the brainchild of Bernhoff Dahl, who also developed Freedom Park. In 1980, Dahl built a 9,800-square-foot steel-frame structure on the 1.5-acre site as an incubator building for start-up businesses. Sixteen years later, he further developed the site by building three business condominiums that will comprise Enterprise Zone 19.

According to Dahl, “many smaller companies don’t need a large lot to build on. Over the years, various businesses have used the incubator building. It has been a great place for a new company to start up.”

A concept catching on outside Maine has advanced the incubator concept to its next logical step: the business condominium. Sometimes a new business takes off and quickly outgrows its existing space. If that company could lease space in a business condo and later purchase that same space, it need not relocate — which saves money on moving expenses.

Or a larger company might spin off its operations into satellite sites. The smaller operations might not require much space and would find a business condo excellent for meeting its needs.

Working with Hermon officials and Don Buffington of Buffington Associates, an economic development consultant for the town, Dahl created an enterprise zone in Freedom Park. The existing building at 19 Freedom Parkway only occupied part of the site, leaving sufficient space for the new development.

Dahl envisioned three single-story buildings that would offer 3,000 square feet apiece, dividable into modules ranging from 750 square feet to the entire building in size. A business “can lease this space from us or exercise a lease-to-purchase option,” Dahl said.

“We’ve designed the buildings so businesses can meet their space needs as a tenant, but can also address the future by being able to expand in the same building or in another area of the park. They can also buy the building,” he said. Owners pay a maintenance fee to cover plowing, mowing, and other exterior services.

LMT Enterprises, owned by Mark Talon (who provided construction-management services), recently finished the first business condo and started work on the other two. The first occupant was a Brewer-based company, Simply Computing Inc., owned by Steve Kirk, Barry Hodgkin, and Jeff Hayward.

Kirk and Hodgkin opened SCI in the East-West Industrial Park in Brewer in 1990; Hayward later joined them as a partner. The company’s first home “was a two-room office with a center reception area,” Kirk recalled. “It was the two of us waiting for the phone to ring.”

SCI specializes in customized software and hardware solutions, emphasizing the latest technology in voice-activated computers. By providing superior customer service and aggressively marketing its services, SCI now serves “over 400 sites, from northern Maine to as far south as Florida and west to Oregon,” Kirk said. The company’s clients include such Fortune 500 firms as Champion International Corp. and Pratt and Whitney.

In time, SCI moved into larger quarters in the East-West Industrial Park. By early 1996, “we realized we needed even more space with easy access to the airport and to the interstate,” Kirk said.

“We investigated our options: leasing, renting, or buying,” he recalled. Kirk contacted John Vogel at ERA Dawson-Bradford in Bangor and discussed SCI’s needs. Vogel told him about the Freedom Park business condominiums. Kirk spoke to Hodgkin and Hayward, and they decided to relocate into the first condo.

That move came on July 13, 1996, with SCI leasing most of the building. SCI is now planning to purchase the entire structure.

“The location is perfect for us, and the building gives us the room we need to grow,” Kirk said. SCI employed six people when it moved to Hermon; with business increasing, the company is adding two more employees, “so you can see we needed the space,” Kirk noted.

The SCI owners and Talon worked closely during finish work on the building. “We had some special needs, and all we had to do was ask,” Kirk said. “We were allowed to do our own computer and electrical wiring.”

“We worked well together,” Talon said. “This will be our goal for each company that decides to move into Enterprise Zone 19. We will work with them to create the space they need.”

Dahl believes the business condominiums will prove popular. Start-up firms often lack sufficient capital to buy a building at the outset, he said, so purchasing a condo later “is a good way to build equity for the future.

“If Enterprise Zone 19 works, we will do it again in Freedom Park. We have another 4.5-acre site we will develop into another condominium enterprise zone, focusing on `high technology’ companies,” he said.