MILLINOCKET – Carla Portwine has a good deal going in Millinocket. Sales of her Portwine of Maine cheese spreads and other gift items are strong, her wholesale client list is growing, and she recently added six new kinds of chocolates and a new cheese spread to her product list.

“But I got an offer that I just couldn’t refuse,” Portwine said Thursday, “with the building I am in now just not fitting our needs anymore.”

Portwine will be closing her gift shop on Aug. 30 to relocate to Morgan Hill Event Center in Hermon by mid-September, she and Morgan Hill owners said.

“It’s a beautiful facility,” Portwine said. “So why would you not want to take your gift shop to a facility that hosts all kinds of events?”

Just outside Bangor, the event center is in an area much larger than Millinocket or the Katahdin region and hosts everything from bridal showers to bar mitzvahs – a perfect location for her gift-basket business and gift shop, Portwine said.

Portwine’s move will put her closer to the southern half of the state, where she spends much of her time handling and cultivating clients for her food products line, she said.

Portwine of Maine sells her cheeses, chocolates and granola bars as well as Maine-made wines, dishware, artwork and photography, gift boxes filled with venison sausage, sparkling cider, maple syrup, white granola, granola with cherries and bottles of red and white wines.

Portwine has become something of a local business folk hero for the relentless work ethic and promotional instincts she has displayed since starting the business after her ailing husband, Peter, lost his job at the failing Great Northern Paper Co. in 2002.

She will be missed, Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said.

“We’re sorry to hear that she is leaving, but it is an opportunity for her to expand her business,” Conlogue said Thursday. “While we would have liked to think that this could have happened here, it’s really someone else’s decision to make.”

Jackie Tapley, one of the owners of Morgan Hill Event Center, which is owned by the Tapley family, said Portwine of Maine will occupy at least 1,500 square feet of the approximately 8,600-square-foot facility, which opened in November.

“We were looking to fill a big space we have, and she was perfect,” Tapley said. “She is high-spirited, very creative and has a wonderful personality, and she makes wonderful cheese. And her baskets were a big drawing, too.”

The business features a ballroom, a dance school that draws about 150 students weekly, and a meeting and convention center. It handles at least 35 weddings annually. The Sea Dog Restaurant of Bangor also will open a catering service there, Tapley said.

Tapley’s encouragement is the primary reason for the move, but Portwine admitted to frustrations with her storefront rental at 245 Aroostook Ave.

The building was not built for wholesale food manufacturing, Portwine said. While she built a licensed food production kitchen within it, Morgan Hill offers a licensed commercial food production kitchen, a huge improvement over what she has.

A roof leak on May 18 cost Portwine about $8,000 in food inventory, computers and other equipment, and she was able to recoup only half, she said. But even if the building problems had not occurred, Morgan Hill’s offer was irresistible, Portwine said.

“Bangor is a much more commercial area to be in – an area with more businesses and potential for growth,” said Brandon Portwine, who helps his mother operate the business.

The Portwines plan to take their two employees with them and hope eventually, if all goes well, to return to Millinocket to open a storefront perhaps in a year or so, Portwine said.

The company is also looking for a Katahdin area or Millinocket business that can act as an outlet for Portwine products, Carla Portwine said.