Millinocket resource center acquires tenants

MILLINOCKET - Less than two months after opening, the BusinessResource Innovation Center is gaining tenants and giving a new lifeto a previously unused building.

Located at Katahdin Paper's Engineering and Research Facility, theBRIC is home to the manufacturing arm of Brims Ness, a waterfiltration sensor company, and the Community Press, a local weeklynewspaper. For the last month, the BRIC also has been home to theMillinocket Area Growth and Investment Council, which serves as thelandlord for the building.

The council recently closed its East Millinocket office and hasbeen housed in BRIC for the last month, according to ExecutiveDirector Bruce McLean. In addition to offering more space, the moveto Millinocket allowed the council to be on-site, offering assistanceas part of the "one-stop shop for small businesses," McLean said.

"With what we're trying to do, it just made sense to be here,"McLean said Monday.

Consisting primarily of office space, the facility has been gearedtoward professional offices, light manufacturing and research anddevelopment. Roughly half of the 57,000-square-foot building still isavailable, McLean said.

McLean is hoping business resource organizations will develop apresence at the facility, either through an office or throughprograms like Incubator Without Walls, which Penquis CAP currently ishosting at the building. The Training and Development Corp. alreadyhas an office in BRIC and McLean is working with the Maine SmallBusiness Development Centers, the Finance Authority of Maine andEastern Maine Community College, among others.

With the help of Building Supervisor John Cyr and the staff atMillinocket Area Growth and Investment Council, BRIC has madedefinite progress since it opened, McLean said. The center now hashigh-speed Internet access and phone lines up and running, he said.

More work still needs to be done and the investment council ispursuing federal funding to help implement later phases of theproject, McLean said. As BRIC develops, the council is hoping tocreate business incubator space that could promote a business-mentoring program with anchor tenants, he said. An educationalprogram to teach entrepreneurial skills to people of all ages alsohas been envisioned, he said.

With the University of Maine as a partner, the funds also would beused for infrastructure improvements to the former paper pilot plantlocated at the center. UM is investigating the possibility ofstarting a satellite paper-research plant at BRIC.

For information, call Millinocket Area Growth and InvestmentCouncil at 723-7300.