Business View Magazine | February 2020

192 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2020 In1939, the school thatwouldgrowintoUNEwas created to educate the children of Biddeford’s millworkers. Today, that same seaside campus is part of Maine’s largest private university — the state’s #1 provider of health professionals, with an expanding global impact that extends to Morocco and beyond. But our roots here are stronger than ever, and we’re proud to be part of today’s renaissance in our jewel of a hometown. www.une.edu UNE AND BIDDEFORD GROWINGTOGETHER mills. So, opening the Falls up to the community is a pure discovery. When we get done with the Riverwalk, it will be a world-class experience.” All of these redevelopment projects have opened up the residential housing market, and Eddy says that Biddeford, once shunned because of the smelly air surrounding the MERC plant, has become a very popular place for the millennial generation. “We are a very young community,” he remarks. “We’re the youngest city in the State of Maine – in our downtown district, we’re about 29 years old; in our community, about 34, which is very unusual. The people are coming here because it has an urban flair that they really like. So, we have focused on developing businesses and working with the mill owners and mill developers on identifying residential units and businesses that are attractive to Millennials. Our population is about 21,000, and we’re growing at about a one-percent rate, but I think we’re going to see a little bit more in the next census, because we’ve added about 350 units. Altogether (with two new projects proposed), we’re going to have about 600 units of new housing – some of it subsidized, some of it market-rate. So, we expect to continue to grow and develop in a very defined urban manner. We’re a small city with an urban scale. ” So, Biddeford is on the march to attract both new businesses, as well as the young workers who will work in them, while concomitantly occupying homes in the city’s older neighborhoods, as well as the new apartments carved out of the former mill buildings. “When I look at Biddeford, I see a community that was skipped over because of the waste-to- energy plant,” Eddy notes. “Now, we’re seen as a reasonable alternative for companies from Portland and Boston.” The city is also witnessing the retreat of many absentee landlords who bought up much of the city’s old housing stock on the cheap in the 1970s and ‘80s, and are now dumping their properties as the city’s new