BREWER – When Cianbro Corp. officials decided to refurbish and reuse the old Eastern Fine Paper Co. mill site for a new modular manufacturing facility, they made investments in the city, the region and the people who live here.

To celebrate the ambitious endeavor – which changed the old abandoned mill site into a place with 500 well-paying jobs – company officials are inviting the public to a grand opening ceremony Friday at the site, now called the Eastern Manufacturing Facility.

“It’s a huge investment,” Tanya Pereira, Brewer economic specialist, said Monday.

The gates will open at 10:30 a.m. and several high-level officials from Pittsfield-based Cianbro and Motiva Enterprises LLC, headquartered in Houston, along with federal, state and local leaders will be on hand to talk about the multimillion-dollar investment and its benefits to Brewer and the region.

“It’s really all about the whole community,” Dottie Hutchins, Cianbro spokeswoman for the project, said recently. Interested residents can “just show up.”

Cianbro was hired to make 52 modules for Motiva Port Arthur Refinery, which is in the middle of a $7 billion expansion that will make its Texas facility the largest crude oil processing plant in North America.

“This contract is Cianbro’s first major job at its new Eastern Manufacturing Facility in Brewer creating approximately 500 local, quality jobs and contributing significantly to Maine’s economy,” Hutchins said.

Building modules are prefabricated, self-standing building skeletons that allow for a quick setup of buildings on construction sites and therefore speedier construction times.

The modules arrive at their destinations wired, with installed pipes, utilities and structural fire protection already in place.

“Cianbro will be giving tours of the facility, so [participants] will be able to get inside the gates and get close up to the modules and learn about the module construction process,” Pereira said.

The tours begin at noon and there also will be a minifair with an interactive kiosk of the different aspects of the project staffed by Cianbro employees.

The three biggest users of modules now are the pharmaceutical, papermaking and petrochemical industries, but they also could be used for bridges and other transportation needs, for future nuclear plants and possibly for marine facilities, Cianbro CEO and Chairman Peter Vigue has said.

Vigue is one of the scheduled speakers for Friday’s celebration. Other speakers include Gov. John Baldacci, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, Gail Kelly, regional director for U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, Motiva President and CEO William B. Welte, and David Lloyd, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, brownfields programs director.

Brewer’s facility is one of only four in North America. The other module manufacturing facilities are in Corpus Christi, Texas, Charleston, N.C., and Tampico, Mexico.

For Brewer officials, who watched their paper mill – once the city’s largest employer – make cutbacks after cutbacks and then close altogether in 2004, the returning well-paying jobs are the news.

“It’s great,” Pereira said.

nricker@bangordailynews.net

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