Old Town firm eyes moving to airport Sewall Co. determined to stay in Maine

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OLD TOWN – Despite frequent enticing offers to move its business out of state, a prominent Old Town company is doing its best to stay in Maine.

The James W. Sewall Co. is in the preliminary stages of working out deals to move from its current office building on Center Street to a new facility at the Old Town Airport.

In turn, the city is considering purchasing a portion of the present Sewall building.

“We’re a Maine company, [and] we are fighting hard to stay that way,” Sewall Co. President Jim Page said Wednesday. “The company itself has a lot of history and ties to the state of Maine. It would be too bad if we were to leave.”

The surveying company, which employs 175 people in four states and has provided mapping services to government and industry nationwide since 1880, is looking to move into a new building closer to the airport where its planes are housed.

“They’ve expressed an interest in having their entire operations relocated at the airport in a more modern facility,” City Manager Peggy Daigle said recently about the company.

The move would create a good business anchor for the city’s industrial park and would encourage other businesses to locate there, Daigle explained.

The business relationship being fostered between Sewall and Old Town is one example of efforts being made to keep an important business in the state. Keeping Maine companies here and attracting other businesses from out of state is something state and local officials say they are working hard at doing.

“Can you ever at any time say we’ve done it all? No. Never,” Dana Connors, Maine State Chamber of Commerce president, said Thursday. “It’s one of those races that never has a finish line.”

In addition to the city’s attempts to keep the Sewall Co. in Old Town, the state has a hand in the plan and is doing everything it can to support the company, according to Jack Cashman, commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development.

“They are and have been a major employer in Old Town for a very long period of time,” Cashman said Wednesday. “We certainly want to keep them in Old Town. They’ve got some deep roots here.”

Sewall officials have several reasons for wanting to move to the airport, mainly because they need new office space.

“We would like a facility that is going to serve our business needs for the foreseeable future,” Page said. “It’s a lot different than it was 10 or 15 years ago.”

As digital technology has advanced and the company no longer does photographic processing, the business requires a different type of office space.

“The fact that most of our work now is done on computer and over the Internet really does change the kind of facility we need,” Page said.

In addition, the business would like to receive the benefits of being in a Pine Tree Zone, as is the airport. Pine Tree Zones offer businesses a combination of tax incentives to spur economic development in targeted areas of the state where unemployment is relatively high and wages are relatively low.

While the tax breaks would be beneficial to the company, it’s not the only reason for Sewall’s desire to relocate.

“Another reason is that we do fly,” Page said. “We do aerial photography, and having the core business located at an airport just makes general good sense.”

The city would build a hangar at the airport for Sewall to lease that would hold four to five planes, Daigle said.

“We haven’t nailed down the details related to that,” she said, but she noted that the Federal Aviation Administration prefers that municipalities retain ownership of hangar space.

“We need hangar space regardless,” Page said.

Staying in Maine

Sewall Co. officials said they hope that some arrangement can be made with the city, but that staying in Maine isn’t easy.

“If we were all 30 years old and starting a new business, it would be hard to come to Old Town, Bangor, or frankly anywhere in Maine,” Page said. “Everything they say about the competitive business climate is pretty much true, and we fight at a certain disadvantage here in the state.”The company also has offices in New York, North Carolina and Kentucky and may add another out-of-state location later this year, Page said.

“The overwhelming majority of our work is from outside the state of Maine,” Page said, although about 75 percent of the company’s 175 employees are based in Maine.

Connors admitted that there are problems with Maine’s business economy, but that there are many positives as well.

“I would describe Maine’s economy as one where we’re facing issues that may hold us back, whether it’s tax burden issues, whether it’s health care [or] whether it’s providing an incentive package,” Connors said. “[But] I do believe that this state is doing the best that it can to make ourselves competitive.”

Other Maine companies have faced similar issues when deciding where to make capital investments or whether to relocate, but the majority of them have found a way to stay here, he said.

“Maine’s people have been second to none, and it gives us the edge in so many occasions when we’re up against other states.” Connors said. “The commitment and the loyalty that our people bring is outstanding and puts us in a location that’s second to no one else.”

He stated that Maine’s people are its best asset in retaining and attracting businesses, while land availability and incentive packages come in second and third. “There’s no question we can be competitive with other states,” Connors said.

The Chamber president acknowledged that being successful in Maine is a challenge for businesses.

“Nothing about economic pursuit of success is ever defined at one time,” Connors said. “It is a pursuit and it needs to constantly know what your problems are and work with them. But because you need to be competitive, it also means that while you face your problems, you praise the positive.”

Future building uses

Preliminary discussions regarding the deal suggest that Sewall’s current office space likely would be divided between two entities and presents a couple of possibilities to the municipality.

“There’s a [local] financial institution that is looking at buying the majority of the building – about 18,000 square feet,” Daigle said. The city would purchase the remaining area, which is almost 13,000 square feet.

The purchase price is estimated at $616,000 for the city’s portion, plus about $270,000 in renovation costs and a contingency fund of about $68,000. The grand total is $953,000.

“It could be used as City Hall,” Daigle said. “[Or] it could be used as a spec building for technology-type businesses that want to be located in Old Town.”

Daigle said she has been talking to University of Maine officials about the possibility of leasing office space to UM’s spin-off technology businesses.

“If it becomes available, it could be a desirable location for some of the spin-off businesses that are being created through UMaine,” UM spokesman Joe Carr said Wednesday. “Occupancy would be determined through negotiations directly involving those spin-off businesses, rather than the university.”

All aspects of Sewall’s plans at the airport would have to be approved by the Planning Board, and city officials hope to obtain some grant money to help pay for the purchase and renovation of the Sewall building if the deal goes through.

“What we’re going to do is give them another month or so to come back to us with a proposal, and then it will come back to the council to act on the entire package,” Daigle said.

“All the parties are still assembling some very essential data,” Page said. “I would hope that this would get completely clear in the next couple of months.”