Developer finds fertile ground in Brewer

BREWER – Joe Muner is a Massachusetts-based developer who has quietly acquired more than 300 acres of land in Brewer adjacent to outer Wilson Street.

He owns the old Agway store, which is now called the Brewer Home-Farm-Garden Center, and envisions a shopping mall, hotel-convention-exposition complex and other enterprises on his land adjacent to the power lines between Eastern Avenue and I-395.

In addition to building a creditable business image, Muner is the center of some local speculation. Capital 7 LLC, the company seeking to build a racino in the area, may be eyeing a sizeable portion of his land for the proposed racetrack-casino.

The company put an option on unspecified Brewer property last week and is about to open a campaign office in downtown Brewer, possibly putting a dent in Bangor’s plans to contract for a racino at Bass Park.

“Where else would they put it?” Muner asked when questioned by a reporter this week if Capital 7 had placed money on his land for a possible racino.

Despite a cat-and-mouse verbal exchange on the topic, the genial 47-year-old entrepreneur stopped short of confirming that it’s his site that is being eyed by Capital 7, a Las Vegas-based organization owned by Shawn Scott.

Instead, Muner, in town Oct. 6 and 7, wanted to talk about his local businesses, including the home-garden store and The Center Mall, an antiques and collectibles shop at 39 Center St., which he bought less than a year ago.

He knows little of antiques and didn’t know much about gardening when he bought the Brewer Agway four years ago. He owns four home-garden stores from Maine to Massachusetts.

Muner sensed a business-friendly environment in Brewer that he liked, so he invested.

Muner credits the Brewer Economic Development Corp. with encouraging a business-friendly atmosphere. The volunteer organization is “very knowledgeable. You better have your questions lined up when you go to them because they’ll all be answered quickly,” he said.

“If there’s a catalyst for business in Brewer, that group is it,” Muner said. “If they’d go public, I’d buy stock in them.”

Michael Legasse, a Brewer business owner who heads the Brewer Economic Development Corp., said Muner “is a very important guy to the community. He’s an out-of-stater who came in and recognized the plum on the tree. [Muner] put a lot of focus and trust in Brewer and I think deservedly so.”

Legasse said Muner is “a man of his word.” He said the developer “appears to be doing it for all the right reasons.”

When Muner came up Interstate 95 to Brewer to check out the store he eventually would buy four years ago, he said his ambitions in the area were small in scope.

“I wanted to start a Dunkin’ Donuts and a Dairy Queen. I didn’t want 300 employees. I wanted some place to retire to – eventually,” said Muner, a father of three.

Now he owns two businesses here and perhaps the best land area in the city in terms of prospective development.

“Joe Muner, given the properties he holds and the potential for them, as well as the actions he’s taking to make them interesting to potential developers and companies, is likely to be a person involved in a number of substantial deals in Brewer [in the future],” said Drew Sachs, Brewer’s economic development director.

Muner “has been very strategic in his thinking and has committed himself heavily to the city of Brewer. As a result, he is well-positioned to be able to achieve great things for himself and the city in years to come,” Sachs said.

Muner has secured most of the state permits needed to develop about 80 acres on outer Wilson Street for the hotel-convention-exposition complex and for retail outlets.

He hasn’t developed definite plans, but he or whoever buys into his vision would only have to deal with the local planning board to proceed. Local permits could be obtained within weeks.

He is not a gambler, Muner said. “I’m in this [Brewer land development] because it looks like a sure thing to me.”