Local Berlin News

[peakbagger]

Some folks appreciate an update on occasion, if you dont, feel free to browse on

Who would have thought ? https://realestate.boston.com/news/2022/06/15/nh-city-makes-best-affordable-list/ The real estate market has been very active of late with many properties doubling in price with homes on the market for days. More than a few younger folks do not remember the pulp mill or the odor.

And soon a lettuce and tomato producer https://www.nhbr.com/berlin-greenhouse-construction-to-begin-next-month/

Bitcoin mining equipment https://www.nhbr.com/canadian-bitcoin-company-has-big-plans-for-berlin-manufacturing-facility/

 

[sierra]

Some folks appreciate an update on occasion, if you dont, feel free to browse on

Who would have thought ? https://realestate.boston.com/news/2022/06/15/nh-city-makes-best-affordable-list/ The real estate market has been very active of late with many properties doubling in price with homes on the market for days. More than a few younger folks do not remember the pulp mill or the odor.

And soon a lettuce and tomato producer https://www.nhbr.com/berlin-greenhouse-construction-to-begin-next-month/

Bitcoin mining equipment https://www.nhbr.com/canadian-bitcoin-company-has-big-plans-for-berlin-manufacturing-facility/

Never did get used to that smell and I don't miss it.

 

[skiguy]

Never did get used to that smell and I don't miss it.

No doubt. Never forget the first time laying eyes on all that pollution. Could not believe all that mess was located north of Mount Washington. It’s been a slow process and has a ways to go but it is coming around to a more acquiescent place. Always find it interesting the socioeconomic contrasts of the North Country driving across Rt. 2. How things would change even more if The Northern Corridor Interstate that has been proposed were to be built and not necessarily for the better.

 

[peakbagger]

I used to spend a couple of million dollars a year trying to reduce the odor. Quantitatively we were successful but some of the compounds could be smelled at parts per billion so for most folks from outside of town they could not tell the difference. To the locals it was the smell of money and jobs for 1700 people when I first went to work for them.

Compared to other big closed pulp and paper mill towns in the region, Berlin is actually in better shape than many. Lincoln is a bunch of crumbling buildings, Millinocket is a flat empty lot with I think the big papermachine building left, East Millinocket still has an empty lot full of old buildings. Westbrook is a future superfund/brownfield site, Sappi just does not want to cut the cord. Jay is a mess of empty buildings. Bucksport is just about cleaned up and due to its location between Acadia and Bangor is well on its way to being recovered with large on shore salmon farm being planned for part of the site.

People forget, there used to be a tissue mill in Plattsburg on Lake Champlain that dumped directly in the lake with rafts of rotten pulp floating in the lake and the IP mill is still on the Lake albeit with modern pollution control.

 

[sierra]

I used to spend a couple of million dollars a year trying to reduce the odor. Quantitatively we were successful but some of the compounds could be smelled at parts per billion so for most folks from outside of town they could not tell the difference. To the locals it was the smell of money and jobs for 1700 people when I first went to work for them.

Compared to other big closed pulp and paper mill towns in the region, Berlin is actually in better shape than many. Lincoln is a bunch of crumbling buildings, Millinocket is a flat empty lot with I think the big papermachine building left, East Millinocket still has an empty lot full of old buildings. Westbrook is a future superfund/brownfield site, Sappi just does not want to cut the cord. Jay is a mess of empty buildings. Bucksport is just about cleaned up and due to its location between Acadia and Bangor is well on its way to being recovered with large on shore salmon farm being planned for part of the site.

People forget, there used to be a tissue mill in Plattsburg on Lake Champlain that dumped directly in the lake with rafts of rotten pulp floating in the lake and the IP mill is still on the Lake albeit with modern pollution control.

Just curious what "Lincoln" you are referring to? The Lincoln on the Kanc is in quite nice shape and it's improving every year.

 

[peakbagger]

Lincoln Maine. I forgot about Lincoln NH, it was quite the armpit when I first had a chance to visit Lincoln in high school. It was actually a business owner in NH that scrapped out the place and did the conversion of the mill building to the shopping complex. It definitely is the best example of a pulp and paper mill town that erased much of its mill town past and converted it into prosperity although I expect being on I93 really helped.

 

[psyculman]

Don't forget Gilman Vt.

 

[peakbagger]

Its easy to forget, My guess is few folks would even be able to find it

 

[Andrew]

If only I held on to my former house in Gorham that I was so relieved to sell in 2018. I bought it in 2007 after prices were falling after mill closures thinking I was getting a good deal. Then 2008 happened and the real estate prices fell further to the bottom. I had someone I knew renting it to cover the mortgage payment after moving in 2014, and eventually sold it to him just for the principal remaining.

The lettuce farm has been in the works for some time, and I'm glad it's actually going to happen.

A number of years ago I thought I heard a plan to produce wood heating pellets at Gilman, but have not found any news of progress.

 

[peakbagger]

The local co-owner of the Gilman operation is the former mill manager. He and his partners own the adjacent hydro dam as well as the former mill complex. He has been trying many various ventures to try to reuse the remaining mill buildings, but none have come to fruition. It looks like they put in a large solar array at some point. He has scrapped and demolished some of the buildings. Its in a pretty well out of the way spot and access is not great.

I think he and his partners get enough revenue off the place that they really do not need to generate additional income off the site. The trade off with owning old papermill complexes is that they can have long term environmental issues. As long as they are standing, the owners can usually delay mitigating them but at some point the sites can become a major liability to a future purchaser. On occasion congress will fund brownfield projects to clean up sites to allow them to be reused but generally that is only when the original owning party is gone. Brownfields make sense in areas where real estate is in great demand but doubt Gilman is a high priority. NH is regarded as more business friendly than VT and the Groveton complex is not that far away and has been actively encouraging redevelopment and spending money to support it.

In the case of Berlin and Gorham operations, the state of NH seized the land under the complex at one point to make it more attractive to future buyers, effectively NH has created a "brownfield" site where the state owns the future liability for major hidden environmental issues as long as the future owners take precautions to avoid disturbing the soil underneath. There is also a EPA superfund site in one small corner of the property that is soon to be closed out. Unlike Lincoln, the former Berlin and Gorham complexes will probably never be converted to residential use. In some ways having this large block of land adjacent to the river could someday become an asset. I only wish there was legal access to the upper gorge of the river, Google Earth does not do it justice. The hydro dam bypasses most of the flow but it must have been impressive before the mills were built. I am surprised that some urban explorer has not sneaked in and done a You Tube video. The lower gorge is accessible and there are walking paths that give access (with some bushwhacking in spots). Franklin NH is trying to develop a whitewater park with the rapids in town, on a scale of 10 Franklin is probably a 2 while the Berlin lower gorge would be 9 if more water was diverted to it.

 

[Andrew]

Thanks peakbagger. I did find an article describing how the owner was improving some of the energy generating infrastructure at the Gilman site years ago in order to attract potential future industrial use. I think that place is kinda cool how it's fairly massive in the middle of nowhere, as it really surprised me the first time I drove upon it.

 

[peakbagger]

Apparently at one time the original owner was the inventor of paper bag converting equipment and the long tall brick building is where they converted paper into the bags. BTW the town was originally called Fitzdale and was renamed for the owner of the mill

It was one of the last American Tissue Mill affiliates to close, the employees were trying to buy supplies to keep running by selling anything they could like pickup trucks and forklifts. Considering the extent of the corporate fraud by couple of Iranians its surprising that the American Tissue fraud does not come up these days but is enshrined in this article https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1125/070.html?sh=5c5b17a530bf The auditing firm of Arthur Anderson of Enron fame was also tied in with the fraud. Enron happened soon after and got a lot more press.

The tag line for Enron was the "smartest guys in the room", the tag line for American Tissue should have been, "not the smartest guys in the room but smarter than the banks and financial firms who believed them"

 

[hiking lady]

I think real estate prices are starting to come down in Berlin and houses are starting to sit on the market longer. The overall population is continuing to decline and it appears that a bunch of the homes being sold as you mentioned are 2nd home buyers from Mass. The High School class of 2022 was a whopping 69 students. I graduated with 200 students 36 yrs ago. I will be curious to see how the 10 yr master plan unfolds. I have been gone for 36 years and the downtown has only progressively dwindled. Although I see new restaurants have opened up, the infamous Dairy Bar closed earlier this year, which is an absolute tragedy, given its long history. We shall see how the next 10-15 years unfold...

 

[peakbagger]

Generally, when there is real estate boom, the Berlin Gorham area is on the tail end. When it makes it on a national website, I know the boom is especially long in the tooth. There are multiple local entrepreneurs in town who bought cheap in the last 20 years who are trying to cash out. There are other out to the area entrepreneurs, like a former Patriot, who bought in high, usually listening to local real estate agents instead of doing their homework, and they are the ones who usually get burned. A local firm was given three or four commercial buildings on RT 16 just north of Walmart free for back taxes within the last 10 years.

The Balsams missed this boom completely, last update is start of construction in 2023.