The site plan for a metal foundry business was approved by the Planning Board last week, with board members and applicant applauding at the conclusion of a complicated, nearly yearlong review of the proposal.
The new business will be located in the Industrial zone behind Punkintown Business Park, and with the unanimous vote of the Planning Board at the Sept. 2 meeting, owner Josh Dow is free to apply for a building permit for the first of several planned buildings.
Dow has been working with town officials since last fall to move and expand his Eliot metal foundry business to his 18-acre property in South Berwick, and hopes to eventually develop the business to create an “industrial arts campus,” as he described it to the Town Council at an October 2025 meeting.
The necessity and expense of road improvements proved to be the most difficult issue to resolve during the months of review. Dow had sought to delay the road work until the business was up and running and generating income, which the Planning Board resisted.
Tax increment financing funds that became available this summer allowed the process to move along.
Early in the process, Dow had asked the Town Council to include his property in the Punkintown Business Park TIF District. Doing so would allow the town to use TIF revenues to offset road improvement costs for a town-owned portion of the gravel access road that leads to Dow’s property, where he lives.
Dow would be responsible for the cost of improving the privately owned parts of the north end of the old Punkintown woods road that passes through his property and a neighboring property, bringing it up to town standards, to service his business. The existing unpaved road also passes the driveway of a second private residence and the trailhead to Rocky Hills Preserve, a Great Works Regional Land Trust property.
The TIF district amendment was given a green light by the Town Council at its April 28, 2026, meeting and has been approved by the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, as required by law.
The Public Works Department will do the road work on the Town’s portion, according to Town Planner Jeff Brubaker, who said he had consulted with Interim Town Manager Jennifer Janelle and Public Works Director Jay Redimarker.
“Public Works says it can begin the road work anytime,” said Brubaker.
