Bangor is now considering purchasing a pre-fabricated metal building to use as a shared commercial kitchen after the city’s initial plan to renovate an existing space proved to be too expensive.
The Bangor City Council’s business and economic development committee this week heard a proposal from city staff to demolish a city-owned building at 50 Cleveland St. and replace it with a roughly 13,000-square-foot pre-made building to house the Bangor Central Kitchen.
The shared kitchen, modeled after a similar one in Portland, is intended to give small businesses space and supplies to establish and grow without having to invest in expensive equipment needed to prepare and package food.
The slight change is the latest development in the city’s plan to bring a kitchen incubator to the area, an idea that has been kicked around for more than a decade. When the idea for the kitchen reignited in 2023, city staff said a shared commercial kitchen would lead to local economic development, job creation, support for local farms and foster more Maine-made products.
“This has a direct impact on small businesses and entrepreneurs,” said the architect for the kitchen, Paul Lewandowski, founder of Portland-based Paul Designs Project. “Maine is a foodie state, so there’s such a market for this.”
Since opening in 2016, Fork Food Lab in Portland has helped start dozens of food trucks, catering businesses, bakeries and food product companies that offer cuisine from more than 16 countries. Fork Food Lab’s long list of alumni includes The Highroller Lobster Company, Falafel Mafia and Tacos La Poblanita, according to the nonprofit’s website.
The city’s initial plan was to renovate a vacant single-story building at 50 Cleveland St. to serve as the community kitchen. The building was once the officers’ club for Dow Air Force Base and has also hosted a winter farmers market.
As the project advanced, however, multiple structural issues were identified that would cost the city at least $1.5 million to fix and bring the building up to code, according to Biguita Hernandez-Smith, Bangor’s economic development officer.
The building’s roof, for example, needs to be replaced and reinforced to accommodate a modern HVAC system and the building needs to be completely rewired to handle the increased power demands of a large commercial kitchen, according to Lewandowski.
“The building itself is very outdated and out of code,” Hernandez-Smith said. “To replace that and bring it up to code, it’d be $1.5 million. Obviously, that isn’t an option because we’re still looking for funding.”
The city set aside $1 million in congressional spending for the project and applied for a $3 million grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission to fund the project. City staff expect to hear whether they received that grant later this month, Hernandez-Smith said.
A pre-fabricated building, however, would cost the city just $350,000 and ultimately save the project $1.5 million, reducing the total cost to $5.5 million, according to Hernandez-Smith.
The new proposed building would keep the layout and features of the city’s initial plan and offer ample cooking, freezer and refrigerator space, a loading dock and a multipurpose room for classes or cooking demonstration, said Lewandowski, who also worked on Portland’s Fork Food Lab.
The pre-fabricated building would also be entirely electric, more energy efficient and have an induction cooking system, making it safer for those who aren’t used to commercial kitchens, Lewandowski said.
Construction on the building could begin in the late spring or early summer and would likely take nine months to a year to complete, Lewandowski said. The space could be occupied in 2026.
