NEW LIFE FOR OLD MILLS

After seeing what a little interest, some tax credits and a lot of work could do for the former Hathaway mill in Waterville, lawmakers last year asked whether the mills that continue to sit empty in Maine could be similarly helped, and worked up a resolve to have a group present its ideas in February. This seemingly mundane process shouldn’t hide how crucial redeveloping these mills is to service centers statewide.

Revitalized mills have served as cornerstones to remade communities throughout the Northeast, including Maine towns. Their impact goes beyond their enormous space – they represent a town’s history, welcome its young people and invite creativity as owners find ways to combine affordable housing, shops, restaurants, galleries and other uses for these sites. Because the mills are often downtown or close to it, their new occupants influence what happens nearby as well.

John Richardson, commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development, points out that redeveloped mills also reduce the demand for services from outlying towns, hold down property taxes by reducing sprawl, and they help build a critical mass of young people who want to live in the refurbished spaces. “It’s nice to train people for jobs in Maine,” he says, “it’s even better to have them stay here.”

An important way to do that is through use of a historic preservation tax credit, which the federal government has used for 30 years to promote the rescue of historically important buildings and simultaneously promote affordable housing as part of the mixed use of the saved structures. Maine’s version of the credit is capped at a much lower level than the federal one, though an exception was made for the Hathaway mill, which is being revitalized.

“You have to ask yourself,” Mr. Richardson says, “If it worked so well for Waterville, why not apply it statewide.” One likely recommendation from the working group is to bring the Maine tax into federal conformity.

Another is to improve the hodgepodge of building codes that can make redevelopment expensive and uncertain. That includes the need for elevators in larger buildings, for instance, which can sometimes make renovations unaffordable. The Brookings report “Charting Maine’s Future” points to New Jersey, which pioneered codes, including elevator requirements, for existing buildings which allowed for incremental standards based on the size of the project.

The legacy of Maine’s strong manufacturing history is a string of valuable buildings that line its rivers and that more often could be put to creative and profitable use. But developers are slowed now by a state that hasn’t caught up with the changed economic landscape, and that hurts development statewide. Quickly this winter, Maine could change all that, and restore the flow of economic activity along its rivers.