Rockland's Revival

By Heather Steeves---BDN Staff
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How decades of planning floated city through stormy recession
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7/9/10---http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/148369.html

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ROCKLAND Maine - Recession? What recession?

Main Street in Rockland hasn't seen empty storefronts. The downtown is full
of people each weekend, and instead of for-sale signs in the windows, shops
have help-wanted signs.

A perfect - and intentional - storm of having business-friendly local
government, adaptability, cheap rent, tax incentives for businesses and
beautification projects all brewed together to allow the midcoast city to
thrive in the economic downturn, according to Rodney Lynch, Rockland's
community development director.

Perhaps the primary cause of Rockland's success has been its business
diversity, he said. Once, the city's focus was entirely on limestone
quarries and fishing. It evolved into a fishing and manufacturing city, and
as mills closed, Rockland - like most towns - hit hard times.

"We saw what was happening, so we readapted," he said. "There was no other
choice."

Now Rockland is a little harder to peg. It is a service center with tourism,
fishing, manufacturing, service jobs and more.

Rockland's economy is not tied to any particular business - so no one loss
can cut too deeply. The city, rather, is pulled forward by a multitude of
shops of all breeds and sizes, from tiny boutiques to Wal-Mart.

Lynch said nonprofit groups have rallied together to help the city. Rockland
Main Street Inc., for instance, helps ensure that the downtown stays
bustling. If a company leaves, the nonprofit works to fill the vacant
storefront.

"Rockland Main Street needs someone to watch out for it," said Lorain
Francis, the executive director and the organization's lone employee.

In addition to helping Main Street property owners find tenants, helping
stores market themselves and doling out advice on business issues, the
nonprofit also has helped the city by securing grants. Francis said the
nonprofit was an integral part of getting a Community Development Block
Grant and a $25,000 grant for the Maine Department of Transportation to
build pedestrian-safe crosswalks.

Grants and tax incentives are key parts of Rockland's strategy.

Since 1998, Rockland has doled out more than $4 million in grants and loans.
Typically, Rockland wins the grants from the state or federal government and
then gives them to people and businesses that need the money. These give
outside businesses incentives to come to the city with their tax dollars.

'It looked nifty'

Kerry Altiero said he could not have gotten his Oak Street restaurant off
the ground without two grants the city helped him secure.

Altiero owns Cafe Miranda, a cozy nighttime hot spot just off Main Street.
Altiero was on a road trip, cruising through North Carolina, Vermont and
eventually up the midcoast looking for a place to start his own restaurant
in 1988. It was February, "I'm not saying I'm sane," he said, but "it looked
nifty."

At that time, closed signs filled Main Street. This appealed to Altiero.

"This is probably affordable," he recalled thinking. So he turned down a few
job offers in New York City and took a spot as a chef in Tenants Harbor. "I
drove to St. George and thought, 'What am I doing?' At 10 p.m. the only
thing open was Domino's."

By 1993 Altiero saved enough to put an offer on an old gambling hall on Oak
Street. His bid instantly was rejected as too low. The owners, though, were
in a rush, and a few months later called him back and offered it to him.

"People said 'Are you nuts?' Now they say 'What a visionary.' I'm stupid
enough, hardworking enough, lucky enough to pull this off," Altiero said,
sitting near his dog in a loft above his restaurant.

At the time when Cafe Miranda opened, there were three other restaurants in
town. "Now there are a boatload," he said.

Altiero isn't afraid to take all the credit for Rockland's culinary boom.
"That's what I kicked off - what I call the food renaissance of the
midcoast," he said.

While Altiero was relatively early to the scene, it was about 10 years ago
when people really started taking notice of Rockland.

Maybe it was the cheap rent or maybe it was because that's when the city
hired a community development director who began to offer businesses
incentives for moving to the city. Or perhaps it was because the city
adopted its comprehensive plan in 2002.

The city benefits directly from some of its business incentives. One state
program, Tax Increment Financing, allows the city to zone off areas of town
and collect any newly generated tax funds over the course of the program.
Three TIFs have been created; two for Fisher Engineering and another that
covers Tillson Avenue. The latter is set to bring in $11 million to the city
over the agreement's lifetime.According to Lynch, the city will collect
about $300,000 from one of the Fisher TIFs. That money then gets reinvested
into the community through more grants and loans.

Because the TIFs also help reduce company taxes, it offers incentive for
expanding businesses. Fisher, for instance, had to close one of its
branches. They didn't choose to close the Rockland bureau, and Lynch says it
was the TIF that helped convince the business to stay put. As a result, the
plow company expanded its Rockland presence.

'A tough town'

Incentives like that weren't around when David Hoch's mother worked at a
sewing machine with many other factory-employed women in the Van Baalen's
building - now the Breakwater Marketplace on Camden Street.

At that time, Rockland was a dangerous city.

"It was actually a tough town," Hoch, a lifetime city resident, said in the
Rockland Historical Society room of the library, where he works. "The
Rockland reputation, and it came from the waterfront - all the people on
schooners. The people on the boats were not the highest level of society. It
was dangerous."

Hoch, who said he has lived in the city "forever," was the last president of
the last lime company in Rockland. He told the crews of the
Rockland-Rockport Lime Co. the day they would stop burning the kilns.

"It's completely different," he said of his hometown. "It's gone from
totally manufacturing to what it is now. I've seen it happen."

Hoch cited the Farnsworth Art Museum as the nucleus of change.

"It brought art to town," he said. "No one could have imagined that could
have turned into what it is now. That was the major change."

Frank Isganitis, co-owner of the LimeRock Inn on Limerock Street, said that
culture shift has helped diversify the city's industry, and change residents'
attitudes toward its past.

"It's a personal and social circumstance," he said. "People in a mill town
look back at that mill and say, 'If I only had that mill again, I could put
food on the table,' but those manufacturing jobs have sailed away -
literally."

As for Rockland's economic future, Isganitis sees the city as just a few
miles of track from being a train ride to anywhere. Plans to hook the
seaside city into the national Amtrak grid are in the works. Rockland's
train now runs to Brunswick. Portland's buses connect to Boston, and Boston's
to the world.

Bringing more potential customers from away to the city would be just fine
with Heidi Vanorse.

From her Main Street dog boutique, Vanorse already enjoys the substantial
customer base in the city's downtown. But the lifelong Rockland resident
remembers the tough times, too.

Shops such as her Loyal Biscuit, which sells collars, dog food, catnip
pickles and puppy toys, didn't exist when she was growing up on the seaside
streets.

"For me, having lived here forever, it's a much different downtown from when
I grew up," she said. "It was always a rough, blue-collar town, now it's
grown into a nice place to live and visit."