New Effort Underway to Revitalize Loring
LIMESTONE, Maine (WAGM) -
A new effort is being made to revitalize the former Loring Airforce Base. Brian Bouchard has the story.
Recently it was announced that Loring would be the subject of a two year business development and marketing campaign, funded through a $400,000 dollar investment that was included in the State’s supplemental budget, in an effort to draw new business investment to the Loring Commerce Centre.
“I was on the Loring Board for a number of years”
Steve Levesque is the president of SHL, a Greenville based economic development consulting firm, which was selected by the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development to lead the effort.
“And I just retired from running the redevelopment authority down in Brunswick, so I’m very familiar with Loring and obviously base redevelopment”
SHL’s work at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station has lead to over 137 businesses operating on what is now called Brunswick Landing. Levesque hopes his firm can do the same for Loring.
“I think it’s an amazing asset, not only for northern Maine but for the whole state. It’s already built, I call it “Open the door ready”. It has infrastructure that’s there, water, sewer, roads, electricity, buildings that are open the door ready”
Levesque says among the industries they plan to market are Transportation, Agricultural Products, Wood Products, Energy and the Aerospace industry.
“Loring hasn’t really had a lot of, hasn’t had a big, hasn’t had ANY marketing budget in a number of years to really promote itself and if you don’t tell people about your place, they’re not going to know about it.”
When asked how long before we could start to see the impact of these efforts, Levesque said they have already started revitalizing Loring’s presence on the web and in the coming months will be attending tradeshows and discussing with potential partners about a future at Loring Commerce Centre.
“It’s a great asset for economic opportunity for the state”
Brian Bouchard, NewsSource8
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