CAMDEN, Maine — After more than a year on the market, the town of Camden hasn’t been able to give away a piece of riverfront land zoned for commercial development.
The $0 price tag hasn’t drawn any buyers. The town’s development director says that’s because a $0 price tag doesn’t mean “free,” and also because of the general economic climate.
Last September, Camden revealed its plan to give away 3.5 acres of riverside land to anyone who wants it — with a few caveats. The future owner of the land will have to pay $200,000 up front. Then, for every eight workers hired, the owner will get a third of the purchase price refunded.
The company will have five years to hit the 24-employee mark and get the full rebate of $200,000 before the offer expires.
The jobs also have to pay more than the average wage for Knox County — $45,165 including benefits, to be exact.
The land also is challenging to build on. The site sits beside the Megunticook River, and used to house Apollo Tannery, which allowed tanning solvents to run into some of the land’s soil.
So far, there hasn’t been much movement on the land. In April, a startup movie company offered to buy the land, so long as it only had to pay $1 for it upfront. Camden agreed, but the movie studio backed out anyway.
“The land is still available with much of the cause being due to the economy,” said Brian Hodges, Camden’s development director. “The economy took a turn to a level that we have not seen since the Great Depression. As a result, much of the business community turned from an expansion to a retention/maintenance mode.”
Hodges said the town is continuing with an aggressive advertising strategy to try to lure in buyers.
With those limitations tied to employment and wage and benefit levels, the property isn’t “free” at all, so why not just give up that gimmick, set a reasonable price, and put it on the market?
You dont get it! The whole idea is to create jobs for the community.
Abscent these stipulations the Supposed Job Creators are likly to just put up a building to wharehouse all the crap coming in from China!
MBNA moved in property taxes went up along with the budget, MBNA moved out, now what do we do? We definitely can’t cut the budget, people depend on “us” Just like any mill town, coincidentally this property is located in the “Millville” part of Camden “where the mountains, meet the sea”
At least the property would be productive and on the tax rolls. Anyway, how many jobs has this vacant lot with the town’s sale conditions created?
This is a dumb plan. All back azzwarsds and they wonder why it won’t work. A case of liberal group think……absolutely not grounded in market economics… I bet some university academic came up with this.
Remember Thurston Howell III and Lovey from Gilligan’s Island? 2/3 of Camden act like them. They didn’t want MBNA to move in either…
And the other 1/3 dress like the skipper and think like Gilligan.
Well played, sir!
Who would be stupid enough to buy this land……other than the Obama administration.
or who would buy a toxic landfill, oh yeah, the LePage administration.
LePage has a record of buying useless land….let’s see if he wants this one too
“Free” seems to have a different definition in Camden…..the restrictions are foolish and the possibility that the land is contaminated and the new “owner” would most likely face who knows how much $$ costs to clean up the site is craziness…..
I live in the Mid Coast area and I would like to know when the average wage became over $21.00 per hour benefits or no benefits included?
Knox county is the cape Elizabeth of the other maine, They have some very wealthy people living there (like hundreds of millions in net worth wealthy) so Im sure that number is caused by the amount of money they make offsetting the real average. Camden should compensate for that by not including the top earners. I’m sure it would then be more like 20k
I agree that Know country does have some very wealthy people living there. But then you also have Rockland added into that. OVER filled with hopeless deadbeats that have WAY too many kids just to get money from the state then use all the money on booze and cigarettes. Thomaston is a mix, you’ve got some historical families that keep true to tradition and they have what they have because they were hard workers, then you have a few low lives, then you have all the fishermen, and they are their own class all together. Camden has the namesake of being the wealthy of all of knox county, but in no means is the whole county anywhere near wealthy.
I suppose my arrogance may come from the fact that I am FROM knox country and don’t know how to compare it to the rest of the state, so maybe we are better off then everyone else, I honestly don’t know. But I also know, they way Camden runs their businesses, there’s no way anyone would want to come in there. No chain stores allowed, you’re not allowed to hang an open sign or advertise your business in any means in the town (such as a street sign). It’s incredibly frustrating all they do to keep it looking the way they want it.
But they want to keep it pretty for the tourists like Nantucket does, don’t cha know.
It might be needed for the set of a remake of ‘Peyton Place’.
‘If we stay stuck in time for everyone else, we’ll have a rebirth!’ :-|
Yeah my family tried to break into the camden restaurant scene a few years ago, the rules are so restrictive that you cannot even operate a take out style restaurant. So we moved elsewhere. I know rockland has a lot of deadbeats but when you factor in some peoples incomes its still substantial enough to off set the average.
Either way its a shame that camden has to be the way it is, only excepting change that the ”preppy society” will allow.
They wouldn’t even allow a Dunkin Donuts.
First thing Camden needs too do is convince Augusta to accept liability for any cleanup, at Maine Taxpayers expense of course, like the landfill in Millinocket …………………..
Guess you can see that the Assessor in Camden has alot of work ahead if the market value for a lot on the waterfront is $0.00 and you can not sell it. LOL
maybe taxes are too HIGH in Maine for any business!!!!
Its made even worse when the city council determines wages in a private business.
Abscent decent wages they should Tax the living daylights out of the money hoarders.
Its these low wage sweat shops that CAUSE the need for welfare!
Government cannot set wages.
to many strings !
free..right that is almost entrapment..CEO’s in Maine dont make that much often haha
Great example of over-regulation.
If I could earn
$45,165 including benefits, I would move back to Camden in a minute. I could no longer afford to live in the area so I moved north. Camden used to be a nice little town back in the 70’s but it has grown so with wealth that working people can’t afford it anymore.
I’ll buy it for a dollar, what were the rules again? ..so many employees? I’ll start a meth clinic for the robbers at the Camden Rite Aid and bus in the extras from Rockland and Bangor