The Business and Economic Development Committee on Jan. 7 postponed consideration of the proposed Bangor Central Kitchen, directing staff to return with clarified financials and an operations plan.

Anne Krieg, the city's director of community economic development, said the project began at staff level in 2017 and has restarted with parallel tracks: negotiations with a construction manager and onboarding an operations consultant to produce financial modeling and governance options. Krieg told the committee the city has secured about $1,500,000 in congressional funding and $500,000 from the Northern Border Regional Commission, and has spent roughly $500,000 on architectural work plus earlier abatement and study costs.

Krieg said staff determined reuse of the original building was no longer feasible after years of deterioration and vandalism, and argued a demo-and-rebuild—using a prefabricated metal building sized to market demand—would be more cost-effective and energy efficient.

Councilors pressed staff for up-to-date figures. One committee member cited an earlier study that estimated operating losses of about $200,000 a year during the first five years but asked whether that number included bonding costs; staff said the prior estimate did not include bonding and that bonding costs have not yet been calculated. Krieg said the operations consultant will provide updated loss projections and a recommended business governance model (nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid) to ensure the facility's sustainability.

Questions also focused on facility size and uses. Staff presented the project as an approximately 18,000-square-foot incubator with an additional cold-storage component (about 5,000 square feet). Councillors asked whether the state's cold-storage plans overlap with the city's proposed temperature-controlled storage for food products; staff said the state project is different but committed to verifying the distinction.

Staff reported they have a pipeline of interest—an internal list of roughly 20 potential tenant businesses, and that about half of those contacts seemed "very serious." Krieg and staff emphasized the project is meant to complement other local food initiatives, such as a YMCA community kitchen and a university food innovation lab, and to provide below-market space and business-support services for food entrepreneurs.

After discussion, a councillor moved to postpone the central-kitchen item to the next BED meeting so staff can provide the requested additional information. The roll-call vote recorded yes responses from Councilor Mallard, Councilor Carson and Councilor Fish and recorded no votes from Councilor Palermo and one speaker whose identity was not specified in the transcript; the chair announced the motion to postpone carried.

The committee asked staff to supply, before the next meeting: updated bonding cost estimates; the consultant's operations/financial model and assumptions; national success-rate statistics and case-study follow-ups; clarification on cold-storage overlap with state plans; and a proposed management/governance approach for operating the kitchen. The item will return to the BED agenda after staff provides those details.