Updates and Resources from the Maine Downtown Center | December, 2020

Click here to access the MDC newsletter dated Friday, December 4, 2020.

Our latest newsletter includes updates on the Maine Broadband Coalition, Tourism, Hospitality & Retail Economic Recovery Grants, The Maine SBDC Recovery & Relaunch Resource Center, the MDC Annual Annual Awards event on January 28, 2021, and more!

Updates and Resources from the Maine Downtown Center | November, 2020

Click here to access the MDC newsletter dated Thursday, November 5, 2020.

Our latest newsletter includes updates on the Maine Downtown Center’s Annual Awards, beating the winter blues, MDF’s new online leadership programs, the Main Street Now conference, and more!

New Research Shows Maine Historic Tax Credit Delivers Strong Economic Impacts Benefiting Local Communities and the State

Recently released research commissioned by Maine Preservation in partnership with CEI, Greater Portland Landmarks, GrowSmart Maine, and Maine Real Estate & Development Association (MEREDA) shows that Maine’s historic rehabilitation tax credit (HTC) has had strong, far-reaching impacts on Maine’s economy and quality of life while more than paying for itself. The “Maine Historic Tax Credit Economic Impacts Report,” authored by Charles Lawton and Frank O’Hara, leading Maine-based economists, illuminates that HTC-aided renovations have added over $166 million to local property tax rolls in host communities, including $17 million in new property tax revenue since 2010. The HTC program has become a major local development tool in its own right with an another $19 million in new income and sales tax revenues are estimated to have come into state coffers since 2008. To date, the program has generated $3 million more in state and local tax revenues than it has cost in tax credits and it is estimated that the net economic benefit to Maine state and local governments will double to at least $6 million annually by 2022. 

The data reveals that the HTC has generated $525 million in construction investment; rehabilitating 3.6 million square feet of commercial and residential space; and created or preserved 1,911 housing units, of which nearly 1,300 are affordable. The construction spending alone has generated 200-700 full-time-equivalent jobs annually for the past decade. Additionally, nearly 700 new full-time, year-round jobs have been generated by businesses occupying commercial spaces and in building maintenance, generating $13 million per year in ongoing income to families living in these communities. For insight into how local communities benefit from this program, please see the case studies in the report.

More information in the Portland Press Herald article found HERE. You can read the full report HERE.

Ashland receives grants to market the community, upgrade water system

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ASHLAND, Maine (WAGM) –

The town of Ashland has received more than a million dollars in grant money. Kathy McCarty has more on how the money will benefit the community.

Promoting Ashland as a place for forestry-related industry just got a bit easier, according to Town Manager Cyr Martin, thanks to two recently-received grants. Plans are to use the money to develop interest in a specialty line of building materials.

“The grant basically consists of two grants: one from FFEI, which is the Future Forestry Economy Incorporated, and that was $450,000; and the other part – the other grant we got was through MDF, Maine Development Foundation, that was for $150,000. So it totals out to $600,000,” says Cyr Martin.

Martin says this is a joint effort of the town of Ashland, Seven Islands, the Pingree heirs, and WholeTree Structures of Madison, Wisconsin. According to their website, WholeTrees is “the national leader in engineering of round timber for commercial construction … products are pre-engineered wood components made from un-milled timbers, a byproduct of sustainable forest management.”

Martin says, “It requires no adhesive when they, of course – when they mill the product, no adhesive. It needs minimal processing, ’cause all you’re doing is taking the bark off. And it can be fabricated into any building – like it could be added on to this building if we wanted to add, like, a little pavilion or what have you.”

The grants will pay for a marketing person, and a part-time position at the Town Office to help with advertising over the next two years, to promote Ashland as a site for round timber production.

“We have the trees, of course – amid forestry – and we have products that could be easily changed over, you know, and help out,” he says.

Ashland also received a grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission on behalf of the Water and Sewer District.

“They got a $505,000 grant to replace the water tank up on Exchange Street,” says Martin.