Development

Thanks to lots of planning and a $400,000 state grant, the town of Trenton has built a successful business park with a focus on the maritime industry.

The eight-lot park, which is near the Hancock County-Bar Harbor airport, was built in 1999 and has just one empty lot, according to Selectman Jim Cameron. However, there is a business interested in the lot and Cameron hopes to have it filled by next May.

Trenton’s eight-lot business park near the Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport was built in 1999.

In part, Trenton started the park as a way to expand the tax base and thus control the increases in property taxes.

“We’re one of the coastal communities where property taxes keep going up and up and up,” said Cameron.

The tactic has been “very successful,” despite the fact that Trenton needed to provide tax incentives to lure businesses, so “we’re not realizing the full extent of the tax revenues,” said Cameron.

Indeed, Trenton’s mill rate without the industrial park would be $15.48 per $1,000 valuation. Instead, it is $14.75 per $1,000, according to Assessor Pat Hopkins.

The Hancock County Planning Commission has marketed the park for Trenton.

Ron Poitras, a senior planner with the commission, has said, “the idea for the park was developed as a part of the comprehensive planning process.”

Trenton formed a business development committee, which did an inventory of existing businesses. It studied locations. It visited businesses in the area to see what their expansion needs might be, Poitras said.

Trenton negotiated with Hancock County to buy the property. It won a $400,000 grant from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development for infrastructure and road construction.

Before Trenton could apply for the grant, Poitras said, it had to have one business willing to move into the proposed park.

That business was Tempshield Inc., which makes cryogenic gloves. The company already had two locations in Hancock and Mount Desert Island and was looking to expand, according to Poitras.

Tempshield drew a related business, Gallery Leather Co. Inc. to the site, Poitras said.

The Hinckley Jet Boat Division moved to the park and has been a “magnet,” said Cameron. With the exception of the first two businesses (Tempshield and Gallery Leather), the rest seem to complement the boatbuilder, he said.

Murphy Marine Transportation, which does work for Hinckley, relocated to Trenton from Southwest Harbor earlier this year.

Indeed, it helps to have a theme for the park, to “clearly spell out what businesses you’re looking for,” said Poitras.

The Hinckley Jet Boat division moved to the Trenton park primarily to get into a labor market with a “slightly bigger pool to draw from,” said Paul Frederick, head of manufacturing at Hinckley Jet Boat division.

“When you’re in Trenton, you can pull from Bangor, Bucksport, wherever,” said Frederick. Although Trenton is only 20 miles from Southwest Harbor, “those can be 20 painful miles in the summer,” said Frederick.

Plus, “we never could have grown to the size we are physically at the Southwest Harbor site as well.”

Trenton’s close proximity to the island was another reason for the Hinckley move.

Trenton created a special zone for the park so it could determine what type of businesses would locate there.

Trenton wanted light industry, which would be environmentally “benign,” Poitras said.

The new zone was also part of the effort to create a tax-increment-financing (TIF) district at the park.

“The fact that we did an inventory of the existing businesses who wanted to expand and could not in their current locations,” contributed to the park’s success, Poitras said.

“We are very pleased with our efforts,” said Cameron.