Over the next two decades, Scott Wardwell imagines a 72-acre swath of land at the Presque Isle International Airport transforming into a sprawling complex for aerospace companies looking to tap into the vast and unencumbered airspace above the North Maine Woods.
The complex would bring more than 400 new jobs for scientists and engineers, Wardwell, the airport director, estimates, not counting support staff. The influx would reshape the face of industry in a city already attempting to reinvent itself.
Crews broke ground on the John F. Kennedy Aerospace Research Park last summer, which aims to become that complex.
But in a city suffering from a severe housing crisis that is widespread in Maine, Wardwell and other city leaders are asking themselves the same question: Where will those workers live?
“We’re asking that on a daily basis here,” Presque Isle City Manager Sonja Eyler said. “How are we going to house people?”
Twenty miles north, the same conversations puzzle industry and municipal leaders in Limestone. The former military boom town is attempting to spur its revival by redeveloping Loring Air Force Base.
They’ve had some major wins: a $65 million potato chip plant expected to bring 50-125 jobs and an aerospace company slated to bring another 50-175, according to Jonathan Judkins, president and CEO of the Loring Development Authority.
The base — and town — have enough housing available to meet the short-term demand, their leaders say, but if their economic development goals are to succeed, they need to boost the overall stock.
“We’re going to catch this tractor trailer truck,” Limestone Town Manager Ed Pocock said, referring to an anticipated influx of economic growth. “Well, I want to be a T. Rex. I want to flip the truck when we catch it, and housing is going to be a big piece of that.
“If you don’t have the housing, it’s gonna make it that much more difficult to entice people to move into the area,” Pocock said.
‘A chicken and egg scenario’
Presque Isle, Limestone and the eight communities that directly border them, have an estimated total of 13,804 housing units for a population just shy of 27,000.
Vacancy rates vary, from as low as 8% in Presque Isle to as high as 19% in Easton. But that doesn’t paint a complete picture.
Despite Maine’s overall housing vacancy rate of 21.1%, the nation’s highest, only around 2% of homes statewide are available for rent or sale. That’s because seasonal and vacation homes make up 19% of the state’s housing stock, according to census estimates.
That makes the market “exceptionally tight in most places,” Scott Thistle, MaineHousing’s communications director, told the Bangor Daily News last summer.
There is no comprehensive data on the number of seasonal homes in Aroostook County, but many rural towns boast numerous seasonal cabins and cottages, referred to as “camps.” The County also has more older homes than all but Androscoggin County, leaving some housing stock vacant and in need of rehabilitation.
That, combined with the rise of median rent and housing prices, suggests Aroostook follows the state vacancy trend.
In 2015, the median house price in The County was just under $90,000. In 2024, it reached nearly $160,000, outpacing median income growth twofold, according to MaineHousing data.
A healthy vacancy rate typically hovers between 5% and 10%, housing experts say, suggesting good demand, but enough stock to keep units both available and affordable.
That’s where Limestone wants to find itself as it prepares for the future.
“It’s tricky, because if you overdo it, it’s going to turn away investors. If you underdo it, you’re going to raise prices,” Pocock said. “You’ve got to find that Goldilocks zone where it’s going to satisfy both people who want to invest in doing development and the ones that obviously want to keep prices stable.”
The town and Loring Development Authority, which manages the former Air Force base, are collaborating to develop long-term plans to incentivize housing development. But they’re also taking action now.
The development authority is working with a tiny home vendor from the West Coast to bring 21 one-bedroom, efficiency housing units to Well Drive, a road adjacent to Lime Rock Golf Club, Judkins, the LDA’s chief, said.
The homes are planned to transition into assisted living after they are no longer needed to support the workforce.
“These units are both essential for our workforce housing and will play a long-term strategic goal with Loring,” Judkins said.
Scott Hinkel, co-founder of Green 4 Maine, a redevelopment company that owns a substantial portion of the Loring campus, told the Bangor Daily News in October that the company was looking for capital investment for as many as 2,000 housing units. It’s not clear where that proposal currently stands. Hinkel did not respond to an interview request for this story.
Figuring out what types of homes the new workforce would need is another challenge. In Presque Isle, the 400-plus engineers and scientists the city hopes will occupy its research park will presumably be looking for different housing than a tradesman working in a plant in Limestone.
“A lot of times when people talk about housing, they’re thinking about low-income housing,” Wardwell said. “This housing is a different beast.”
Wardwell referenced Moose Ridge Road, a 2000s development in Mapleton with more than 20 homes, as the type of housing he anticipates the higher-salaried workers the park aims to attract would want.
If the visions of those behind Aroostook’s two major new industry hubs come to fruition, surrounding towns will also see a greater strain on housing markets. Caribou, the larger city west of Limestone, knows this.
The city is drafting a report assessing its housing needs, which it will parlay into an action plan to positively impact that stock this year.
When Loring Air Force Base closed in 1994, it economically dampened Caribou, where the population dropped by 12% between 1990 and the new millenium. The city hopes the base’s revival will have the opposite effect.
“What we do know is that when Loring succeeds, Caribou succeeds,” Caribou Economic and Community Development Specialist Eric Sanderson said. “In one sense, housing is informed by businesses, but the businesses also need a place for their workers to live. So you’re kind of in a chicken and egg scenario.”
But if these municipalities are going to meet the need they anticipate, the housing challenge can’t remain a circular dilemma. One has to come before the other.
“It’ll work itself out, but wouldn’t it be nice to get ahead of that curve as opposed to getting hit by the boomerang when it comes around?” Pocock said.
