Brewer focuses on new team for redevelopment of old mill

BREWER – City officials are not giving out the names, but they have decided to move forward with a team of in-state and out-of-state investors interested in redeveloping the former Eastern Fine Paper Co. mill.

“The team is absolutely top notch,” D’arcy Main-Boyington, Brewer economic development director, said Monday. “They have a tremendous amount of experience doing mills. That’s what they specialize in. That’s all they do.”

The city official declined to reveal not only the names of the investors, but also the number of people on the team and where specifically they are from.

Main-Boyington said the team is looking at refurbishing the 100-year-old mill primarily into town houses, with a health club; a restaurant and retail space; and an art-theater complex. A marina and connections to a historic walking trail along the river also are included in the investment team’s plans.

The decision removes from the table an indoor-outdoor water park and the proposal submitted by Minnesota-based developer Michael Stern, who was chosen as developer for the site last year.

After several changes were made to Stern’s plans, city officials in March decided to go out for a second round of proposals to redevelop the 41-acre South Brewer site, owned by the city.

The investment team was selected this week as the city’s choice from the new submissions, Main-Boyington said, stressing the choice was not an easy one.

“They have done numerous $100 million projects, [and] they’ve all involved mills,” she said. “This is what they exist for. They’ve established this will be a $60 million project.”

The former mill, which the city acquired five months after it closed in January 2004, has been vacant for more than two years while city leaders have worked to redevelop the site into a destination point.

The 1917 administration building is preserved in the new designs, which leaves open the possibility of moving City Hall to the historic building, if the decision is made to do so.

A major component of the most recent plans proposed for the defunct mill are town houses on all three levels, with interior courtyards that have natural light streaming in through windows in the ceiling.

Now that the decision has been made on the investors, the city will work on details of the plan.

“Over the next 30 to 60 days, we would like to be able to negotiate a pre-purchase sales agreement” for the building and the land, Main-Boyington said. “That would really lay out the framework for the final sale,” expected six to nine months later.

Once the pre-purchase sales agreement is signed, the investors’ names will be released, she said.

Because city officials would like continued movement on the project and to ensure that financing is secure, several conditions are being worked into the agreement, Tanya Pereira the city’s economic development specialist, said Monday.

“It’s really going to change the face of South Brewer,” she said.

Pereira and Main-Boyington traveled in recent weeks to four sites that the investment team has completed, which the Brewer officials declined to identify. They said they were impressed with how the projects have improved the communities.

“They do it with a strong sense of community development – that’s been very obvious to us,” Main-Boyington said. “This team goes to great effort to involve the community’s interests and desires in the projects” they do.

The investment team received resounding support from city leaders in each community that Brewer’s economic development team visited. The Brewer officials were told the team has extensive knowledge in dealing with federal and other public funds.

Brewer has received several million in funds dedicated to the site’s redevelopment since taking ownership, mostly for cleanup, demolition and transportation improvements, and it’s good to have a partner who understands the ins and outs of the programs, Main-Boyington said.

“They have a fantastic track record,” she said.