Commissioner Richardson speaks from the Maine Development Foundation's annual meeting about Maine's economic redevelopment tools

I had the honor today of presenting the Main Street Hero Award to the Speaker's Coalition, in particular Representative Ted Kaufman for introduction of LD 262 that became the State Historic Preservation Tax Credit. That was the missing piece in the redevelopment in a lot of our downtown centers and a lot of our mill redevelopment projects. We're really excited because now we have a chance to redevelop these mills, have it make economic sense, revitalize our downtown areas and create the kind of quality of place that we've all been talking about. Today was a day to celebrate the fact that the State Historic Preservation Tax Credit was put in place.

If you think about the State Historic Preservation Tax Credit, if you think about the new building code, if you think about what we've done with respect to the river bond redevelopment, this now gives managers and the local developers the tools they need in the toolbox to make mill redevelopment, downtown centers, and those areas that are on rivers, to make them better, it gives them a real chance of doing so. We're really excited about the river bond it's going to take effect in November, people will be able to bid on the $5 million that exits in the program and we're excited that that's going to be the next step in development of our downtown centers.

Beyond the $150,000 a year of technical assistance through HUD, beyond the Historic Preservation Tax Credit, the next step will be the river bond and we're very happy that we’re going to have that out for consideration in November.