Lewiston-Auburn undergoing extreme makeover

LEWISTON – This city used to be known for its fading mills, and many residents were embarrassed by the blight of bars, pawn shops and porn stores on lower Lisbon Street.

But times are changing.

New brick facades and painted steel reflect a $20 million development on Lisbon Street. And the shell of a former mill is hidden behind a sign advertising condos with “million dollar views”; across the street, a new fountain springs in front of another mill building.

These developments are part of an ongoing “Extreme Makeover” that’s happening block by block in Lewiston and Auburn, the Sun Journal newspaper said.

In Lewiston, more than $300 million has been invested in new businesses and city improvements so far this decade; more than $100 million has been spent in Auburn over the same period, the newspaper reported.

“The image of the old mill town is gone,” said Gerard Dennison, an analyst with the state Department of Labor who has been studying the region’s economy for more than a decade.

“It’s Happening Here” is the slogan adopted by the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council in 2002. The group began putting up banners and circulating bumper stickers in 2003.

A year later, it began airing TV commercials with local celebrities including former Major League Baseball shortstop Mike Bordick, comedian Bob Marley and former Gov. Angus King.

Dennison, who still lives in the Auburn house where he grew up, said the proof of the cities’ resurgence is in the numbers.

In 1991, as the country was experiencing a recession with unemployment reaching nearly 7 percent, Maine’s rate was 7.5 percent. And Lewiston-Auburn, reeling from the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs, was 9.5 percent, he said.

By 2000, unemployment in Lewiston-Auburn had fallen to 3.4 percent, better than the national average and mirroring the Maine rate, he said.

Though the local rate has climbed again to 5 percent, roughly the national average, Dennison said jobs are being added to the work force.

The Lewiston-Auburn area has 300 more jobs than it did a year ago. And Dennison predicted that new or growing businesses would add 800 more jobs in the next year.

Miller credited Wal-Mart with much of the change in retail development.

Until the late 1990s, national chains often ignored Lewiston-Auburn altogether. But Wal-Mart’s store became one of the most profitable on the East Coast. Wal-Mart even built a $60 million distribution center that plans to add 250 jobs this year.

Wal-Mart’s success caused retailers to rethink their analyses, Miller said.

“This market has been underserved for a long, long time,” he said.

As new development adds jobs, Dennison hopes salaries also will climb.

The 2000 census showed the average Lewiston household trailed the statewide average of $37,240 by about $8,000. In the nine-year period between 2003 and 2012, Dennison predicts Lewiston-area wages will climb by 10.3 percent overall.

Someone with a two-year degree would see wages rise by 21 percent. “Education is the long-term fix,” he said. “It’s what will keep us growing.”