The excellent news that Cianbro Corp. has advanced plans to build a manufacturing plant at the former Eastern Fine Paper site in Brewer is particularly welcome because of its scale – 500 jobs expected at the beginning stages – and because the type of work could lead to related expansions. The proposal is a solid advance for an economic sector in a region that has been forced to focus on mitigating losses in recent years.

Cianbro announced last week that it would rehabilitate the site of the former mill into a facility that would produce prefabricated steel building modules that would be shipped by barge down the Penobscot to industrial clients, who would then join the modules on site. Some advantages to building modules at facilities such as the one in Brewer instead of on a construction site include having better controlled conditions, so that weather and temperature variation don’t harm a final product or cause delays in construction.

Three advantages to constructing the modules specifically in Brewer are the proximity of the river, I-95 and, most important, the quality of the local workforce. In a news story, Peter Vigue, CEO of Cianbro, noted both the abundance of local workers and their dedication, adding that Cianbro subcontractors to “have never let us down – never.”

Manufacturing on this scale, combined with redevelopment by Red Shield of the Georgia-Pacific plant in Old Town, changes the employment outlook here. They would provide not only jobs with good pay to a region that badly needs them, but could establish opportunities for suppliers, create incentives for related businesses to locate nearby to tap into a skilled workforce and demonstrate that Maine is serious about attracting new business. Welders, electricians, millwrights and others will again be in demand.

The city of Brewer has been aggressive about trying to find a replacement to the former Eastern Fine paper mill and has used ingenuity and hard work to attract potential developers. In coming to agreement with Cianbro, it found a partner that will help reinvigorate and diversify the city’s manufacturing base and give the city, which would own the pier for the barges, an enduring stake in the project’s outcome.

As details of the project emerge in the coming months, the region will learn more about the potential for the module facility and of its affect on Brewer. For now, it appears that the type of manufacturing is exactly the sort of business the region should want to encourage and that the reuse of the Eastern Fine mill will bring valuable jobs to a place hungry for them.