Nyle Corp. factory to bring 80 jobs to Brewer

BREWER - Things are heating up at Nyle Corp., and company leaders are pumped. The company, through its division Nyle Special Products LLC of Bangor, has designed and is marketing a new heat pump that works in cold climates and needs a space to call home to produce the units.

Brewer is that home, according to Don Lewis, co-founder and president of Nyle Corp. Working with the city, the company is making plans to build a new facility that will bring 80 new manufacturing jobs to the area.

"We've designed the system here in Brewer and want to make them here in Brewer," he said on Monday. "We're from here. It's a Brewer business and a Brewer company, and it is our intent to have it stay here."

Nyle Corp., now located on Center Street in Brewer, has outgrown its space, and its new "cold climate heat pumps," as they are called, are being manufactured at a facility in Bangor.

"There is a lot of business left on the table because we don't have the space," Lewis said. "Nyle Special Products has the potential to be a big producer."

Nyle was co-founded by Lewis and Sam Nyer in 1977 and began business producing lumber-drying equipment.

Brewer officials have worked with Lewis for 18 months to create a solution that is in the best interest of all of the parties involved, economic development director Drew Sachs said Monday.

"The reason why Brewer is so excited about this is because there is no competitor [making the pumps], and it's 80 manufacturing jobs," he said. "That's a new product with tremendous growth potential."

The two partners came up with a plan that involves building a new 60,000-square-foot expandable facility at the location of the former Shurtleff Salt facility off Parkway South, just south of Interstate 395.

In exchange, the Center Street location may be turned over to the city as part of its Penobscot Landing redevelopment project along the river. The 6,000-square-foot Penobscot Landing project includes a walkway, a commercial shopping area, a public pier, a marina and a children's garden.

"That would anchor one piece of the Penobscot Landing project," Lewis said. "None of this is finalized. We're all working towards this end, but I'm sure there will be some bumps in the road."

The Brewer Economic Development Corp. should acquire the 36 acres off Parkway South at the end of this month and will sell 5 acres in the back portion of the lot to Nyle.

The city applied for and received initial approval for a $400,000 Community Development Block Grant from the state to build a new roadway, along with utilities, into the location connecting Nyle's back lot with Parkway South. The city pitched in $80,000 in matching funds and accepted the grant on June 28.

"This is the city and the state working together to help a Brewer business expand," Sachs said. "We're helping one of our own."

The land between Parkway South and Nyle's new facility will be made available for other commercial or industrial developments, which are in short supply within the city, according to Sachs.

Nyle will consolidate its corporate office, which employs 27 people, and Nyle Special Products, which employs up to 20 people, at the new location, which falls within Brewer's Pine Tree Development Zone.

"We're betting on a fledgling technology and people we know," Sachs said.

A copyright article from the Bangor Daily News by Nok-Noi Hauger, Of the NEWS Staff: Wednesday, July 21, 2004.

dmain-boyington@brewerme.org