MILLINOCKET – The Maine Rural Development Authority voted unanimously Friday to give a kitchen cabinet-making and furniture factory a $275,000 loan that will allow it to buy and move into a former Ford dealership on Central Street.

Michael J. Brown Cabinet Makers LLC had hoped to get the loan about 11/2 months ago, and MRDA even signaled preliminary loan approval in late September before abruptly voting 4-1 against it three weeks ago.

Aware that the delays came from incomplete information and threatened Brown’s partnership with Sky Burrill’s Majesty Hardwood Floors of Bangor, MRDA’s board of directors agreed to reconsider the request and approved it during a conference call Friday.

“We are going to try to do it, to get through the loan closing, as quickly as we can,” MRDA Executive Director John Cleveland said Friday.

The $275,000 is part of a $560,000 investment funded through loans from MRDA, Key Bank and Coastal Enterprises Inc., a private, nonprofit community development corporation that develops job-creating natural resources and small business ventures in rural regions, Brown said Friday.

MRDA seemed to waffle on the loan application, but directors were concerned about the company’s ability to handle the debt and survive the ongoing housing market slowdown, Cleveland said. Brown Cabinet Makers creates high-end kitchens, cabinets and furniture – everything from dressers and entertainment centers to bookshelves and fireplace mantels.

Needing to make the loan work, Brown and Preo answered the concerns by increasing their working capital through Burrill and agreeing to give MRDA the building if they default on the loan, Brown and Cleveland said.

Brown, now a 7-member company because the delay forced it to lay off two workers, is planning to employ 12-20 full-timers. The company could eventually double that number if its business with Majesty takes off – good news in a Katahdin region that typically has unemployment at double the state average and about half its population at or below the poverty line.

In addition to the Central Street location, Burrill’s Majesty showroom in Bangor and his other flooring, carpet and lighting showroom in Watertown, N.Y., will carry Brown creations.

Burrill had hoped to open an expanded Bangor showroom by Nov. 1, but the delay is partially why he is opening Dec. 1, Preo said.

“We are very thankful that they [MRDA] approved our loan. If this would have happened a month and a half ago, I would be even more thankful,” Brown said Friday.

Funded by a $6 million state Legislature appropriation in 2002, the Auburn-based MRDA provides financial assistance to rural communities and businesses to help develop speculative commercial and industrial industries and to help redevelop underutilized properties.

“I think it [the delay] is typical government bureaucracy, I really do. I really think there were other influences that made the board swing the way they did,” Brown said. “It cost us a lot of money and my concern was that it was going to cost us the deal with Sky. If it had gone another month, it would have.”

Among the influences: Congressman Michael H. Michaud; state Department of Economic Development Director Jack Cashman, an MRDA board member; and Bruce McLean, executive director of the Millinocket Area Growth and Investment Council.

All lobbied MRDA for Brown Cabinet Makers, and McLean helped establish the CEI connection, Brown said.

“I can honestly tell you that had it not been for Bruce and MAGIC, this would not have happened,” Brown said. “He did what he is supposed to do. He is supposed to help us get started in business, and he did exactly that and then some.”

Brown despaired that town voters voted 1,153 to 1,014 last week to not appropriate to MAGIC, a quasi-public regional economic development agency, $30,000 to complement $30,000 already appropriated by the Town Council.

“It’s a crying shame that people make judgements on Bruce and MAGIC that have never even attempted to use what resources they give. He is there to do something and he does it,” Brown said. “It’s only because he helps a small amount of people. It’s impossible to help everybody. He doesn’t touch a lot of people, but the people he does touch are really helped a lot by it.”

Brown Cabinet Makers is a strong business going into a prime location, the eastern end of Route 11 and the beginning of one of the town’s largest retail zones, McLean said.

“The building that is virtually the first one you see when you come into town,” McLean said. “It’s an almost empty building and that’s a bad signal to send. Filling the building is a huge improvement, and it will have an excellent psychological effect on people.”

Brown’s showroom will be a showcase for many products besides his own made in the region, McLean said.

Construction will begin the week after Thanksgiving with a grand opening in January. The company will spend December upgrading the Central Street location and creating an assembly line, Preo said.