Woodworking firm hammers in success Baldacci, on state tour, hails expansion of Walpole in Pittsfield’s Pine Tree Zone

PITTSFIELD – Amid the scent of pine and cedar sawdust, the bang of pneumatic nail guns and the whine of planers and saws, Gov. John Baldacci toured Walpole Woodworkers in Pittsfield on Tuesday and declared the company one of the Pine Tree Zone’s programs success stories.

What was originally a campaign promise became reality as Baldacci visited Walpole, one of two major investments in the Pittsfield Industrial Park directly attributed to the program.

Baldacci has been touring the Pine Tree Zone programs around the state for a month.

“We now have eight Pine Tree Zones covering 5,000 acres each,” Baldacci said. “It is a beginning.” He was particularly pleased with the million-dollar expansion project at Walpole, $400,000 of which was funded through a competitive Community Development Block Grant.

Louis Maglio, president of the 71-year-old Walpole, Mass., company, said 40 jobs would be created immediately. “Many that have joined our company are from Sysco and Dexter Shoe and other area companies that went out of business or downsized,” he said. Renovation of a 43,000-square-foot building in Pittsfield’s Industrial Park will also bring in more jobs, he said.

He said the Pine Tree Zone program played a decisive part in his decision to move half of the company’s work force in Walpole, Mass., to Maine. “It had a good deal of influence. We had an opportunity to take some of our manufacturing into North Carolina,” he said. “And based on the Pine Tree Zone and some of the other issues, it just nudged us to come to Maine.”

Pine Tree Zone incentives include a refund of all corporate income and insurance premium taxes for five years, and a 50 percent refund for another five. The program extends a community’s ability to offer tax increment financing. On July 1 it began to exempt construction materials and equipment purchases a company makes related to its Pine Tree Zone operations from all sales and use taxes.

Pittsfield has also benefited as a Pine Tree Zone with the recent announcement that a multimillion-dollar medical-waste facility will be built in the industrial park this year.

The eight designated regions in which communities can create Pine Tree Zones effectively cover the entire state. Each region can present a maximum of 5,000 acres to receive benefits. To qualify, a community must show unemployment above the state average, show below-average wages or have lost more than 5 percent of its population or work force over the last 3 years.

Eligible companies must also be in one of nine targeted industry sectors: financial services, manufacturing, advanced technologies for forestry and agriculture, aquaculture and marine technology, biotechnology, composites materials technology, environmental technology, information technology, and precision manufacturing technology.