A business owner hoping to relocate and expand his metalworking foundry to an 18-acre property in Punkintown gave details of his project to the Planning Board last week.
Josh Dow, who lives at 8 Punkintown Road and runs Green Foundry out of Sanctuary Arts in Eliot, said he wants to expand to his property off Route 236 because he needs more room for the large metal casting and fabrication jobs he does for artists, which make up the bulk of his business.
“I have five pounds of stuff in a two-pound bag,” Dow told the board at the March 18 meeting, referring to his existing studio.
Dow, who is working with business partner Jake Winebaum, formerly of Kittery Point, described his vision for a campus on 18 acres behind Punkintown Place.
It has taken Dow a year to ready his sketch plan for review by the Planning Board, he said, the first of several board meetings where the board offered informal feedback before the formal application and conditions can be accepted by both parties.
The facility will be large enough to keep up with his current work load and to expand services to “people who want to learn how to make a living with their hands,” Dow said. “We’ll be right across the street from (Marshwood) high school, and I’d like to open up some kind of voc tech something. It seems like a really good fit.”
The sketch plan calls for two buildings, including a larger two-story building that will house offices, classrooms, clean machining rooms, studios, residential space, and a large open production floor for fabrication.
Dow referred to the second, smaller building as a “bomb-proof hot spot” for high heat casting activities such as molten metal being poured into molds.
The Planning Board expressed support for the project after posing questions about smoke or odors from the manufacturing process, road conditions, building placement and fire suppression, which Dow responded to informally.
The next step in the process would be a major site plan application in which those issues would be formally addressed.
Dow added that his existing business has operated for many years in a residential neighborhood in Eliot without any problems with neighbors.
The Town Council in October signed a reimbursement agreement, proposed by Dow, that requires him to foot the bill for any legal or mapping expenses the Town incurs in preparing a Tax Increment Financing district amendment.
Dow had asked the council to add his parcel to the existing Punkintown TIF District, allowing the Town to collect all property taxes levied on the site and reinvest the revenue in that district.
The Planning Board’s permit process precedes the Town Council’s approval of amending a TIF agreement, an amendment also requiring approval from the state Department of Economic and Community Development.
Member Clay Curtis said he had attended a class taught by Dow at Sanctuary Arts and said he was an excellent teacher.
Dow thanked him and added the plan was to “melt stuff, have fun and teach people how cool it is.”
