# 35. Why Maine's Old Mills, Tanneries, and Closed Schools Stay Vacant (And the Organization Working to Change That) | Gabe Gauvin, Maine Redevelopment

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/housing-matters-podcast-7058173/35-why-maine-s-old-mills-tanneries-and-closed-schools-stay-vacant-and-the-organization-working-to-change-that-gabe-gauvin-maine-redevelopment
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/housing-matters-podcast-7058173/35-why-maine-s-old-mills-tanneries-and-closed-schools-stay-vacant-and-the-organization-working-to-change-that-gabe-gauvin-maine-redevelopment.md
Podcast: [Housing Matters Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/housing-matters-podcast-7058173)
Published: 2026-05-27T14:32:32+00:00
Episode link: https://housingmatters.podbean.com/e/35-why-maines-old-mills-tanneries-and-closed-schools-stay-vacant-and-the-organization-working-to-change-that-gabe-gauvin-maine-redevelopment/
Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/a7pz56ftkxfghsif/gabegauvin.mp3
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Duration seconds: 3524

## Resource

You've driven past it. An old mill building sitting right on the river, windows gone, roof caving in, weeds taking over. And you've thought the same thing everyone thinks: why hasn't anyone done something with that? The answer is complicated. And in this episode, I'm talking with someone who is working every single day to change it. Gabe Gauvin is the Programs Manager at Maine Redevelopment, a quasi-governmental organization created by the Maine Legislature to unlock the state's most stuck properties and get them back into productive use. Gabe brings a background in place-based economic development, rural planning, and environmental remediation, and he has lived and worked in nearly every corner of Maine. He knows this state and he knows these projects. We cover a lot of ground in this one. We start with Gabe's path from the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments to the Central Maine Growth Council and now to Maine Redevelopment, and how working across so many different parts of the state has shaped the way he thinks about community investment and revitalization. Then we get into what Maine Redevelopment actually is and how it works. They are one of only four or five statewide land bank authorities in the entire country. Their scope covers properties that are vacant, abandoned, functionally obsolete, contaminated, or stuck for legal reasons. And their structure as a quasi-governmental organization gives them something most public agencies do not have: the ability to move fast, take on risk, and operate with an entrepreneurial mindset. From there we dig into the Hartland Tannery, the first property Maine Redevelopment has acquired into its land bank. It is a roughly 30-acre brownfield site along the Sebasticook River in Hartland that has had some kind of industrial oper…

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