Mainebiz

V O L . X X X N O. X I I M AY 2 7 , 2 0 2 4 20 L O C A L LY G ROW N F O C U S Maine Grains acquired the vacant lot in 2020 under an agreement with the town to use it in mutually beneficial ways. Lambke said that the town would like to see a project that fits in with the Maine Grains cam- pus, which has inspired a lot of entrepreneurship, including food and agriculture entrepreneurship. e project also encourages foot traffic and retail shopping in the downtown area as part of a larger design toward a river park development that is underway on the Kennebec. Building community Amy Rowbottom, owner of Crooked Face Creamery, started her business at the farmers' mar- ket and operated there before moving her opera- tions to the Maine Grains building. "e traffic for the farmers' market helps us out when they are here and in the winter when they move up the street to the greenhouse, and we miss them," says Rowbottom. "It gets pretty quiet around here when the farmers' market moves. I am excited to have that space for the farmers. We work so closely together that having them here year-round will be great. "I hope the new building will bring more community and more collaboration. We all col- laborate so much," she continues. "We can have even more startup companies because I know that Amber is thinking about more business space for people to open up businesses. Making downtown Skowhegan an attraction for people to come, I think, is the biggest thing." Lambke says the Farmers' Market plays an important role. "We will save room in that building to solve a long- standing issue for the Skowhegan Farmers' Market — which is what to do in the wintertime," says Lambke. "In recent years, the Farmer's Market has met weekly on our lot from April to November. But, for the winter months, they go up the street and into a greenhouse. We all feel the loss of the market during this time and you lose customers when you move it off-site." She says the Farmers' Market plays a vital role in addressing food insecurity in the region. "We serve a lot of SNAP users at our Farmers' Market. Skowhegan is a population where 51% of our population qualifies for SNAP," she says, referring to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. "We have a robust program of [SNAP electronic benefits transfer] sales at the Farmers' Market as well as nutrition incentives." More about the project In the past four years, the expansion project has gone through its challenges and is now in its third design phase, navigating the pandemic, inflation and increases in construction costs. "For the version two building, we got a price quote back of $5 million to build," says Lambke. "At the time, that was a little higher than we hoped, so we waited a year and tried to engineer some costs out of the design. COVID construction prices kept going up, so even by engineering out some of the most expensive pieces, the quote a year later came back at $7.5 million. "We engaged our bank, got an appraisal loan on that building, and that $7.5 million building was going to be appraised at $2.5 million once it was built," she continued. "In my 20 years of living here, the only new building I've seen go up in the down- town area besides box store chains is the pharmacy." She cites the region's "chronic disinvestment" and investment in box stores or strip malls. e gap between the estimated construction cost and the appraised value "is just enormous," Lambke says. "You need to fill that gap some other way and that is philanthropic cash flow — and putting pressure on an expanding business with cash flow is difficult." Funding for the project In 2022, the USDA awarded Lambke a $200,000 Healthy Food Financing Initiative grant. An anon- ymous donor also contributed money to help spur the project's planning stages. Lambke told Mainebiz that she is working on securing more funding this year. She has several grant requests out right now for multiple pieces of this vision. "e Healthy Food Financing Initiative grant is helping us with all of the pre-construction engineer- ing services, architecture, mechanical and geotechnical services that are necessary to get ready for the construc- tion. We have just gone under contract with [Fairfield- based] Sheridan Construction to help us with design and development," says Lambke. "ose are the next steps while we continue to raise funds." A l e x i s W e l l s , M a i n e b i z s t a f f w r i t e r , c a n b e r e a c h e d a t a w e l l s @ m a i n e b i z . b i z » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E I was volunteering at our local farmers' market when I realized that local grains were missing from the conversations. — Amber Lambke Maine Grains M AY 2 7 , 2 0 2 4 20 P H O T O / F R E D F I E L D A hopper full of grain being milled at Maine Grains in Skowhegan.

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