Mainebiz

V O L . X X V I I I N O. I I JA N UA R Y 2 4 , 2 0 2 2 14 S O U T H E R N M A I N E I n 2020, Bradley Abbott and his late father Jesse began gutting a vacant 95,000-square-foot manufactur- ing and warehouse building at 1 Eagle Drive in Sanford Industrial Park, on the city's south side. e project included installing a new roof and removing some 500 tons of construction debris. "We were filling six 30-yard dump- sters per day," says Brad Abbott. "It's an amount of material you can't even fathom." e project resulted in a quick lease of almost all of the space to Biddeford-based corrugated packaging manufacturer Volk Packaging. Abbott, whose father Jesse passed away in November, is now sole owner of the Scarborough-based development firm 43 North. He was astonished by the turnaround. Typically, the transition from renovations to full occupancy is three years, and leases would range from 10,000 square feet to 15,000 square feet. "So the demand for 80,000 square feet was astonishing," he says. Bullish on Sanford at demand is an indicator of the new construction, expansion and relocations Sanford has seen in recent years. "A lot of existing companies are bullish on being here and expanding here," says James Nimon, executive director of the Sanford Regional Economic Growth Council, a non- profit established in 2009 to improve the economy in the Sanford area, which includes Springvale. "We try to balance supporting them while working with new companies to build for the future." When Nimon came to the council in 2011, industrial development was slow and there was plenty of space available in the city's industrial parks. ings changed, as companies expanded in or relocated to Sanford. Today's businesses represent many industries and sectors of the economy that trade globally. ey include high- tech manufacturers serving biotech- nology and life sciences, precision manufacturing, service-providers in health care, information technology and engineered materials. "We have great proximity to Boston and New York City," says Nimon. "Anecdotally, as we hear that talent and companies are fleeing those areas, we'd like to say that Sanford, Maine, is a great location for you." P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY F O C U S A lot of existing companies are bullish on being here and expanding here. — James Nimon Sanford Regional Economic Growth Council Travis Tremblay, left, mdirector of operations at 1 Eagle Drive; Amy Volk, director of communications and PR for Volk Packaging Corp.; and Brad Abbott, managing director at 43 North, in the warehouse for Volk Paxit at the Sanford Industrial Park. Former mill town diversifies, becoming home to a range of industries B y L a u r i e S c h r e i b e r

• Cover