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V I E W P O I N T S W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 3 A P R I L 3 , 2 0 1 7 For a daily digest of Maine's top business news, sign up for the Mainebiz Daily Report at mainebiz.biz/enews Get Maine's business news daily at mainebiz.biz and on Twitter (@Mainebiz). Below is some of the best from our online-only offerings: Featured @ Mainebiz.biz SBA has two new faces in Maine The Maine District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration has a new director, Amy Bassett, who succeeds longtime director Marilyn Geroux, and Brad Currie is the new senior area manager of the SBA's Portland office. Find out more at mainebiz.biz/sbanews Hackers breach Maine job match service America's JobLink, a multi-state web-based system that links Maine job seekers with employers, has been the victim of a hacking incident from a "mali- cious third party 'hacker.'" Find out what the Maine Department of Labor is recommending for job seekers whose private information might have been hacked at mainebiz.biz/joblink New 'Aura' for Portland's nightclub scene The old Asylum nightclub in Portland has a new name that fits its $9.1 million expansion and renova- tion. Aura, as the new venue is called, is set to open in late April with a capacity of about 1,000 people and a lineup of 35 scheduled concerts through November. Find out more at mainebiz.biz/aura bernsteinshur.com Be smart. BE SHUR. When you need a lawyer who thinks like an executive and speaks like a human. A t a recent Mainebiz "On the Road" event, I asked participants in our roundtable, What's more important, attracting businesses or attracting people? Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling, who was part of the roundtable discussion, made the point that without people, businesses won't get started and won't grow. e days of the major employer — the paper mill that attracts thousands of employees to a town — are gone, he argues. at brings me to another meeting — and the focus of one of our stories in this issue. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with developer Jonathan Arnold, who redeveloped the Mayo Mill at Dover-Foxcroft and plans to resusci- tate an old sardine cannery in Eastport with a hotel, residential units, retail and dining. e population of Dover-Foxcroft is 4,213; Eastport has 1,293 people. A question any business owner in Maine might ask is, Will there be enough people and potential customers to sustain this business? Arnold is not one to be deterred. He's the principal of Arnold Development Group, a Kansas City, Mo.- based firm that is also developing 2 nd and Delaware, a $70 million, 330,000-square-foot complex with 276 housing units and ground floor retail and dining space in the city's River Market neighborhood. Kansas City's population is 467,000 and the region has 2.16 million people — more than Maine and Vermont combined. In "Field of Dreams," farmer Ray Kinsella heard a voice that told him, "If you build it they will come," and in the past three decades it's become a well-used cliché. But Arnold has great faith in Maine. As a kid, he attended Maine Wilderness Camp on Deer Isle. e camp had an outpost in the North Woods — and he was smitten. Arnold's parents live in Topsham. His wife Erin says she expects they'll retire here one day. More than that, Jonathan Arnold is convincing investors to back him here. He's created a Sustainable City Fund LLC to find investors for the Arnold Development projects. Berkshire Hathaway has been an investor in the firm's work in Kansas City. In Dover- Foxcroft, Arnold took over the former Mayo Mill, what had more recently been operated by Moosehead Manufacturing Co. Inc. It was 60,000 square feet of broken windows, rotted wood and leaky roofs. CEI and Maine Community Foundation were backers on the $12 million makeover. e Mayo Mill at Dover- Foxcroft now has 22 apartments, an inn, a café and 22,000 square feet devoted to small businesses. e rents are cheap and one tenant who moved from Connecticut has both a business location and an apartment overlooking the Piscataquis River. Dover-Foxcroft and Eastport are three hours apart. ere's no direct route. Dover-Foxcroft is like other Maine "twin cities" built around a river — Lewiston-Auburn, Saco-Biddeford — where the mills no longer hum with the same manufac- turing activity, but where new growth is apparent. Eastport saw the decline of the sardine industry, but as I have said before in this space, its downtown has great bones — brick buildings that were built to last. Arnold plans to invest $9 million on the for- mer cannery and up to that amount on additional ground-up residential construction. As Strimling said, we can't wait for a major employer to be a savior, but we can attract new residents. Peter Van Allen pvanallen@mainebiz.biz Cue theme music from "Field of Dreams From the Editor