Editor’s note: This article is by Jennifer Hersey Cleveland of The Caledonian Record, in which it was first published April 25, 2014.
NEWPORT — The city’s development review board issued municipal permits for the proposed AnC Bio Vermont plant during a public hearing Wednesday evening.
The next step, says developer Bill Stenger, is the Act 250 process — if no one appeals the board’s decision within the next 30 days.
Stenger said he expects work will begin this summer on the plant that will manufacture medical devices and is expected to create no fewer than 500 full-time jobs, not including indirect jobs related to the building’s construction.
The development review board found that Stenger and his team had more than met the requirements for permits, according to chair John Harlamert.
According to the application filed by Jay Peak Biomedical Park, the four-story, 84,943-square-foot medical manufacturing facility will be built next to the former Bogner plant on Bogner Drive.
A bottleneck in approving EB-5 foreign investor projects is expected to lighten up shortly, Stenger wrote in an e-mail Thursday. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which reviews and approves EB-5 projects, has 8,000 projects to review at this point, Stenger said, but he is expecting approvals in the next few weeks for both AnC Bio Vermont and the development at Q Burke Mountain in East Burke.
“I believe we will get Act 250 approval because the permit application will address the 10 criteria of Act 250 in a very complete way,” Stenger wrote. “We never take Act 250 approval for granted but feel this is a solid project and we have thought long and hard about all the elements of the commission’s interest.”
Stenger said this project has been in the works for years, beginning with a trip he took with former Gov. Jim Douglas to AnC Bio’s main plant in South Korea six years ago.
The new business will be a “vibrant economic injection into our community,” Stenger said.
Debra Bell of Trudell Consulting Engineers laid out the plans for those assembled.
Demolition of the oldest section of the former Bogner building is the first step, Bell said. The newer parts of the building will sport an improved, consistent exterior, and developers are looking for some sort of light manufacturing business to move there.
Fred Grossfeld, an architect with nne pharmaplan, described the interior of the building. Medical devices like portable dialysis machines and artificial organs will be assembled on the first floor, while the second floor will host cell therapy suites.
The third and fourth floors will host labs, product testing, administrative offices and business support staff, Grossfeld said.
Stenger said he plans to coordinate transportation to the site, much like the shuttle buses that move patrons and staff at Jay Peak Resort.
Newport resident Kristin Anderson said she was worried about noise and lights, but also about biohazards from the “Frankenstein Lab,” as it is being called in her neighborhood.
Chief Counsel Bill Kelley said he wanted to dispel any misunderstandings about what will take place in the building. AnC Bio mainly produces machines. Of the clean rooms, where researchers can rent space, Kelley said everything is done on a very small scale, and because of the nature of the research, it has to be very clean.
In the second part of the hearing, in which the board considered Act 250 criteria, only one issue arose — a letter from North Country Supervisory Union Superintendent Robert Kern indicating that he can’t say local schools can absorb greater enrollment without any data showing projections.
But Stenger said he knows firsthand that enrollment in local school is continually declining in all areas except one — Jay-Westfield Elementary School.
In fact, schools need greater enrollment and a larger tax base, Stenger said. This plant will allow local people to remain in the area and get good-paying jobs in a technical field, he said.
“It will bring economic vitality to the district it perhaps has not seen in 30 years,” Stenger said. “This is going to be a tremendous benefit to the educational community of Orleans County.”
