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V O L . X X I I I N O. X I I M AY 2 9 , 2 0 1 7 24 L E W I S T O N / A U B U R N F O C U S At the 80-acre Auburn Industrial Park, which was established in 2008, there is still room for an additional 220,000 square feet of industrial space. e additional space would likely be welcomed. "What I hear in conversations every day from commercial brokers is that the Portland market is pretty close to capac- ity," says Spencer. " ey can't make land and once it's gone, it's gone." Long-time observers like Fletcher predict interest in L/A will grow. "Lewiston/Auburn is a fairly robust industrial market and there's demand for space that will warrant new con- struction speculation," says Fletcher. "It may be a little premature to say, but I think by the end of the next six months we'll see new prospects." Tie in with conomic development efforts "It starts fi rst with what's happening at home," says Scott Benson, economic and business development director for the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council. Benson explains that much of the cur- rent industrial real estate growth is being undertaken by companies already in L/A. "We're seeing an increase in square footage and an increase in jobs from industrial-based companies that are already here," he says. "We've had what I consider to be three pretty signifi cant expansion announcements just in the last year — L.L. Bean, Clariant and Compounding Solutions." While those and other expansions over the past year have been pretty big, the majority of interest is coming from small companies seeking spaces of 10,000 square feet or less, which doesn't come readily without new construc- tion, says Benson. "We're talking about small shops, innovators, people doing industrial work but on a small scale — the one-, two-, fi ve-guy shop that needs a small space to set up a CNC machine or whatever it might be," he says. And L/A is poised to draw compa- nies from beyond the region, he says. To that end, in 2016, LAEGC launched a campaign, with consultants, to identify and recruit Atlantic Canada companies that are growing and have an interest in developing a presence in the U.S. Northeast. "We met with 30 to 35 businesses to make the case for Lewiston/Auburn," says Benson. Plans call for continuing the campaign into 2018, and also include domestic targets. "I believe it can be a vital piece of the overall economic development approach for these two cities, to have a salesman out there pounding the pavement, creating brand awareness, learning what the need is » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E DESIGN | BUILD | MAINTAIN MEBiz_June17.indd 1 5/12/17 12:21 PM Notable expansion in Lewiston/Auburn Compounding Solutions manufactures plastics compounds for the medi- cal device market. Founded in 1999 in a 10,000-square-foot building, it expanded twice, and is now in 60,000 square feet. It is adding another 40,000 square feet. Clariant, a Swiss fi rm with a site in Lewiston, manufactures pre-colored plastic compounds for the medical device and pharmaceutical industries. It's expanding from 24,000 square feet to 36,000 square feet, with new equipment and an expected 10 new hires, to accommodate annual North American growth of 6–7%. A plant located at 1750 Lisbon St., Lewiston — previously occupied by Steel Service Center — was leased to two companies. One is Haverhill, Mass.-based Boston Granite, which occupies 15,000 square feet. The other is Modula, an automated storage solutions maker, which leased 17,500 square feet. (Modula also has 100,000 square feet in Lewiston's Turnpike Industrial Park.) Cote Corp., which provides crane and rigging services and is based at 2890 Hotel Road in Auburn, purchased a 30,000-square-foot distribution warehouse at 1591 Hotel Road. The seller was Hartt Transportation, which needed to accommodate growth, and built a larger warehouse at Kittyhawk Industrial Park in Auburn. Lewiston-based Kassbohrer ATV Inc., the North American division of a German company, Kassbohrer AG, maker of snow grooming equipment, plans to build a larger plant in Auburn.

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