Recent Survey Reflects Poorly on Maine

Forbes Magazine has recently published there annual report of the Best States to Do Business. It will comes as no surprise that Maine ranks extremely low – even lower than last year’s results. Coming in at 48 (two positions lower than 2006), discouraging results were reported across all categories. Key rankings included:

Business Costs - 43
Labor - 27
Regulatory Environment - 46
Economic Climate - 30
Growth Propsects - 42
Quality of Life - 16

For a complete listing of all states and results, visit Forbes - The Best States.

Forbes has been ranking the Best Metro Areas for Business and Careers for nine years, and this ranking of states looks at many of the same factors, including business and living costs, job and income growth and educational attainment. This year’s rankings, however, go a step further in several ways.

First, there is a review of projections of job, income and gross state product growth. There is also an examination of venture capital money going into an area as well as new businesses that have developed in the past three years. Another addition is the role that government plays on the business climate in terms of environmental and labor laws, as well as taxes and incentives. These factors play out on the state level instead of on the local level. Overall, there were 32 criteria to consider in compiling the list.

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Newspaper Advertising Declines

What do many major real estate firms across the county know – newspaper advertising does not work! According to Richard A. Smith, president of Realogy Corp., the largest residential real estate broker in the United States, newspaper advertising expenditures will continue to shrink in 2007. His firm is expecting to shift nearly two-thirds of all advertising to online sources.

Borrell Associates in Norfolk, VA have reported that newspaper advertising dropped by 14% in the first quarter of 2007 and even more in the second quarter. The collapse is significant because home-sale ads propped up newspapers last year, after automotive and employment spending declined.

It is clear that the drop in newspaper advertising is not simply a reflection of the slow-down in the real estate market. The home buying process has changed permanently as over 80% of all buyers begin their search online. For that reason we have focused our efforts on creating online real estate services that provide home buyers with the tools they need to get a good feel for the market in the privacy of their own homes.

Features such as MLS Search and Auto Search allow clients to be current with all the trends of the local market and view ALL the homes available – not just the ones currently being advertised in the local paper.

Although newspaper executives may have a different view of the situation – that drops in print advertising is cyclical and a reflection of the poor market – brokerage executives differ, saying the shift is permanent and that advertising on the Internet will continue to grow.

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Pemaquid Point Preservation

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, which was built in 1835, is one of the nation’s most recognizable and beloved coastal beacons, and is the only lighthouse ever to be featured on Federal currency (Maine state quarter).

The lighthouse is owned by the United States Coast Guard and licensed to the American Lighthouse Foundation who is responsible for the historic tower’s preservation.

The American Lighthouse Foundation (ALF), a nonprofit lighthouse preservation organization headquartered in Rockland, Maine, is presently undertaking a $106,000 exterior restoration of this historic lighthouse, located within the Town of Bristol, Maine.

Thanks in part to a generous $50,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation; ALF and its local chapter, Friends of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse (FPPL), will complete full restoration of the exterior of the lighthouse by late-summer 2007.

The project includes the removal of old exterior coatings and the cutting out of deteriorated mortar joints between the granite stonework. Additional phases will include re-pointing the granite stonework with historically accurate natural cement and recoating the tower.

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Saco Island Project Approved

In a unanimous vote the Saco Planning Board on Tuesday approved Saco Island LLC’s $100 million redevelopment plan of a 15-acre complex of former manufacturing mills. The project, of comparable size and scope to Portland’s Maine State Pier, has been under consideration and review for more than three years. The current undeveloped land has been vacant for several decades.

Construction is expected to last four years and include a combination of retail space, condominiums, marina and offices.

Last fall, Saco Island LLC negotiated $35 million in tax increment financing from Saco, the largest such deal ever made between a Maine municipality and a real estate developer.

The city also agreed to sell a piece of land to the developers for use as a parking lot, with the agreement that the city would use the proceeds to build a new train station.

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Maine Med Nationally Ranked

Medical care continues to excel in southern Maine. Recently Maine Medical Center, based in Portland, is the first Maine hospital to appear in the U.S. News and World Report “America’s Best Hospitals” rankings. The 2007 rankings rate hospitals by treatment type and include some of the country’s best, like the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Maine Medial Center ranked 50 out of 50 in the “Heart and Heart Surgery” category and 45 out of 50 in the “Orthopedics” category, according to a press release. Only 173 hospitals of 5,462 considered made the paper’s lists.

The hospital was judged on factors including mortality rate, nurse-to-patient ratio and availability of advanced services.

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