Mainebiz

V O L . X X I I I N O. I I I F E B R UA R Y 6 , 2 0 1 7 6 Passamaquoddy Tribe received a total of $807,217 through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Indian Housing Block Grant. Dead River to stay put — as tenant Dead River Co. sold its 114,000-square- foot headquarters building in South Portland, but will remain as the lead ten- ant. e buyers were John and George Cacoulidis, principals of Grand Metro Builders in Jericho, N.Y. eir portfolio also includes Two Monument Square in Portland and 300 Southborough Drive in South Portland. With the Dead River site, at 82 Running Hill Road, Grand Metro acquires a four-story, Class A office building on 12.37 acres. Terms of the deal were not disclosed; the prop- erty's assessed value, according to the South Portland assessor's office, is $15.76 million. Fairchild/ON Semiconductor is also a tenant in the building. e building currently has a 13,000-square- foot vacancy, said NAI e Dunham Group's omas Moulton, who, with Katie Millett, represented the buyers. e property was developed in 1987 by Joe Boulos for Unum, according to a release from CBRE|e Boulos Co. In 2006, Boulos sold the property to Dead River, which owned and managed the property up to now. N O T E W O R T H Y S O U T H E R N Maine Water in Saco selected Hazen, an international engineering firm in New York City, for the engineering de- sign services necessary to build a new $50 million water treatment facility near the Saco River in Biddeford. Avesta Housing, an affordable hous- ing provider in Portland, purchased Seventy-Five State Street in Portland, a 163-year-old independent- and assisted-living senior community. The Maine Girls' Academy, formerly Catherine McAuley High School in Portland, announced it received three gifts to support the education and empowerment of the next genera- tion of strong women in Maine. The gifts included The J. Eileen and Anne C. Conroy Scholarship Funds, nearly MaineHealth garners $61 million in FAME financing MaineHealth, a nonprofit health care company that owns Maine Medical Center and a variety of other hospitals and medical service providers through- out the state, will receive $61 million in financing to help with costs associated with completion of an electronic medi- cal records system. e package was part of $97.3 million in bond financing approved by the Finance Authority of Maine. Others receiving financing were Husson University, which will receive $10.3 million for construction of student apartments and other facilities work; ornton Academy, $23.5 million to finance and refinance the costs of cer- tain capital improvement projects; and LifeFlight of Maine, $2.5 million for a new helicopter and facilities upgrades. N O T E W O R T H Y S T A T E W I D E Midcoast Maine Community Action in Bath received $1,331,706 and Androscoggin Head Start and Child Care in Lewiston received $1,227,569 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for Head Start and Early Head Start programs. The federal government also announced that the Aroostook Band of Micmac Indians, Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Penobscot Indian Nation and the B U S I N E S S M A I N E Business news from around the state S T A T E W I D E S O U T H E R N Bob Evans buys Pineland Farms Potato Co. B y J a m e s M c C a r t h y M A R S H I L L — BEF Foods, a division of Bob Evans Farms Inc. (NASDAQ:BOBE), is buying Pineland Farms Potato Co. for $115 million. The acquisition coincides with Bob Evans Farms' deci- sion to sell its national chain of restaurants to Golden Gate Capital for $565 million and focus on driving growth of its food division, BEF Foods. Both the sale of the restaurants and the acquisition of Pineland Farms Potato Co. are expected to close by April 28. "I think this is the most exciting news for Pineland Farms and for Mars Hill in a long, long time — and we've had a lot of exciting news up here in recent years," said Rodney McCrum, a founder, president and chief operating officer of Pineland Farms Potato Co. "I'm staying on as president, my whole team is staying on. I think this is going to take us to the next level that we couldn't reach on our own." McCrum said he met with employees late afternoon on Jan. 24 to tell them the news and to reassure them that the new owners were committed to the long-term growth of Pineland Farms Potato Co. "I assured them that this is going to help grow our com- pany even more," McCrum said. "I think the best is yet to come. We took it as far as we could. … I think this is good news for northern Maine." McCrum, who's played an integral role in the company's double-digit growth since its repurchase in 2010, was the 2016 Mainebiz "Business Leader of the Year" in the large company category. "I'm not ready to sit under a palm tree yet," he told Mainebiz the morning after the sale was announced. "This movie isn't over. The movie just got extended for another hour." Expanded capacity for growth William Haggett, chairman and CEO of Pineland Farms Potato Co., said Bob Evans' purchase strengthens the Mars Hill company's long-term prospects for continued growth that will benefit its almost 200 employees, dozens of potato grow- ers in Aroostook County, its national restaurant and retail customers and, in general, the economy of northern Maine. "They are obviously a much larger organization that Pineland Farms Potato Co.," Haggett said. "Their financial resources are substantially greater than ours. They are truly a national company with a scope that's much greater: We have national customers, but our primary focus has been on customers that are east of the Mississippi River." Haggett said Pineland Farms Potato's 2016 sales were in the range of $50 million to $60 million. The company, which was repurchased by the Libra Foundation and a group of investors in 2010, has made significant investments in expanding the Mars Hill plant the past six years, resulting in a 125,000-square-foot manufac- turing facility that has tripled its production capacity and reduced operating costs with state-of-the-art equipment. Haggett said the company today ranks among the most efficient refrigerated potato producers in the United States, purchasing more than 100 million pounds of Maine-grown potatoes annually. With its expanded production capacity coming online this spring, Haggett says the Mars Hill facility will have the capacity to handle up to 180 million pounds of potatoes annually. "That means we'll be buying nearly twice as many pota- toes from the local growers," Haggett said, adding that the ripple-effect economic benefits will extend to truckers, seed potato suppliers and other local businesses. Haggett said Bob Evans plans to retain the "Pineland Farms" brand, which he characterized as "an important part of the acquisition." B R I E F Rodney McCrum, , president and COO of Pineland Farms Potato Co., in the packaging area of the new facility in Mars Hill. The company, which McCrum founded with other Aroostook potato farmers, has just been purchased by a division of Bob Evans for $115 million. P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY

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