Cross-border business seen as major boost County seeks regional economic solution

BAILEYVILLE – It started out with a few people sitting around a table talking about the future.

Next year, the new business and commercial park on the corner of Routes 1 and 9 could become the economic heart and soul of Washington County.

The people who started talking about it – the five members of the Baileyville Town Council – were looking for a regional solution to some of their county’s economic ills.

Down East is a smorgasbord of economic failures, including the Princeton Airport and the small railroad spur that serves Charlotte County, New Brunswick.

The county has a multimillion-dollar port in Eastport, but it hasn’t attracted the breadth of business the city had hoped for.

But a market study conducted by the town earlier this year concluded that there was a demand for space and services for cross-border businesses.

“Our location near the Canadian border is our competitive advantage. We were fortunate also to have a large piece of land on a major transportation corridor,” Baileyville Town Manager Jack Clukey said recently.

The market study revealed that the site was ideal for warehousing or for manufacturers that rely on products or markets across the Canadian border.

Depending on the kinds of state and federal grants that are available, construction could begin next year.

The town has applied for a $1.6 million grant. Town officials also could work with a developer who might be interested in creating a large commercial park. “There are some different models. What the town wants to do is pick a model that represents the least cost locally, but maximizes the potential to create jobs,” Clukey said.

Such plans are occurring as the economic future of eastern Washington County appears uncertain. Many are waiting to hear about the fate of its largest manufacturing complex, the Georgia-Pacific mills.

Earlier this year, officials at G-P’s corporate headquarters in Atlanta announced that the Baileyville pulp and paper mill was for sale. The future of two other mills at the complex – the oriented strand board and the chip ‘n saw mill – remains uncertain.

Baileyville Town Council Chairman Doug Jones said the panel would not expect the commercial park to replace G-P.

“We want to get some businesses in here to help fill the void caused by the temporary shutdown of both the chip ‘n saw and the OSB,” he said. “Hopefully, we will get at least one or two businesses with some fairly good wages.”

Clukey said the council has decided to focus on a commercial park because it offers more diversity than an industrial park. “The idea is that the park can create jobs,” he said. As part of the plan, the council is looking at the possibility of a Free Trade Zone, which would allow manufacturers to bring products into the United States, process or assemble them and export them duty free. They also will explore the possibility of an Atlantic Northeast International Trade Center that would house professional services that could assist cross-border businesses with marketing, legal advice, freight forwarding and banking needs.

“We would like to offer these cost-saving benefits to companies,” Clukey said, “because it will help them grow their markets and be competitive internationally.”

Jones said he believes that the park would be an ideal location for a freezer plant to help the county’s blueberry and cranberry industries. He said he has learned that some growers take their product to Massachusetts to have them frozen, then returned to Washington County where the product is stored.

In an effort to draw business to the region, the St. Croix Economic Alliance, made up of Down East business people and community officials, consider the Woodland Commercial Park and the Atlantic Northeast International Trace Center potentially important components in the region’s future business infrastructure.

Jim Porter, interim city manager for Calais, is chairman of SEA.

“By marketing all the industrial parks in the region jointly,” Porter said, “we have just about anything a company involved in manufacturing or international trade could want, including airports, rail, land and access to a deep water port,” he said.

Porter said the Sunrise County Economic Council in Machias and Down East Management Services of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, have been working out details for a joint marketing project tentatively titled the Atlantic Northeast International Trade Network, which could involve industrial parks in Princeton, Baileyville, Calais, Pleasant Point and Eastport.

Vernon Card, managing director of Down East Management Services, also is an enthusiastic supporter of the proposed Baileyville commercial park. The 10,000-square-foot facility, Card said, would be a one-stop shop for international businesses. He said he views the park as something that would benefit all communities in the area.

The council chairman agreed. He said he does not believe the new park would pose a threat to existing industrial parks in eastern Washington County. “A lot of the people we expect to get will be from Canada,” he said.

Clukey said that packaging and marketing all the assets of the region jointly would be a tremendous benefit to the Woodland Commercial Park and all the other facilities in the region.

“Separately, we all have something. But together, we have everything,” he said.