Presque Isle insurance company plans $5M expansion, 50 new jobs

PRESQUE ISLE – Officials with an insurance company in this Aroostook County city confirmed Tuesday that they are working on a more than $5 million expansion that is expected to create 35 to 50 new jobs over the course of 10 years, though they are delaying the release of further information until a public hearing in early June.

Larry Shaw, president and CEO of Maine Mutual Group, said Tuesday that the project involves significant renovations and a major addition to the existing MMG building on Maysville Street.

He said officials would wait to release details on the project until the June 5 Presque Isle City Council meeting. Officials from the company and Northern Maine Development Commission are expected to make an in-depth presentation about the project at the start of the public hearing, which is being held to consider a tax increment financing district for MMG.

The issue came to public attention during the Presque Isle City Council meeting Monday night. Under new business, councilors set a public hearing date for a proposed tax increment financing district. Larry Clark, executive director of the Industrial Council, told the council that the district was for a “major expansion” at MMG.

Clark said Tuesday that a TIF district would allow the city to provide financial assistance to the local economic development project, without affecting its tax base, by using some of the new property taxes that will result from renovations and expansion at the facility.

Clark called the newly created taxes “captured taxes” and said that, by creating a 10-year credit enhancement agreement, a percentage of those captured taxes could be put toward the cost of MMG’s expansion project, benefiting the insurance company and the city.

“This is an excellent, exciting project that provides the city an opportunity to be partners with a longtime, established company, and what we’re extremely pleased about is that they’ve chosen to expand in Presque Isle,” Clark said.

MMG writes more than $95 million in personal and commercial policies in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont – about 50 percent of which are conducted within Maine. The company, founded in 1897, has more than 75,000 policy holders serviced in partnership with 124 independent agencies. The company employs about 130 people.