Portland may have gotten a glimpse of its future this week, when plans for a marine-focused idea factory were announced.

Icelandic businessman Thor Sigfusson and Portland-based consulting and management firm Soli DG Inc., are proposing to set up a building that would lease space to budding entrepreneurs and researchers who are trying to create and bring commercial projects to market. The proposed Ocean Cluster House would be more than just an office building. It would create an environment in which participants can learn from each other and refine their ideas. And when the ideas are promising, Sigfusson could provide the capital they need to get off the ground in exchange for an equity position.

The businessmen are in negotiations with the city to set up their project on the second floor of the Maine State Pier shed, which would put Portland’s newest buildings at the site of some of its first. In view of the former railyard that once linked grain brought from Canadian farmers to the world, Mainers will be looking to create useful products from discarded lobster shells.

Sigfussion said the cluster concept is based on one in Iceland, where innovation added value to a declining catch of cod. He said his country has doubled the income it gets from its fishery despite landing half the amount of fish. Although the technology the investors in Portland hope to produce would be cutting edge, they’d also benefit from the old-fashioned serendipity of working in the same place and bouncing ideas off each other, Sigfusson believes.

This development is exciting, and it was years in the making. Portland became significant to Icelandic trade when Eimskip chose it to be its North American port, with regular container ships carrying import and export trade.

That was possible because under Gov. LePage, the state invested in the marine terminal and its rail connection (LePage was in town Thursday to welcome the developers). The marine terminal was upgraded at the start of the recession with stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The seeds were sown even earlier, when Portland voters approved strict zoning in the 1980s that protected the working waterfront. It was impossible to envision something like the Ocean Cluster then, but had the waterfront been filled with condominiums and hotels and the groundfishing and lobster boats pushed out, this kind of development would probably not be possible.

If successful this venture would not only create high-paying new jobs, but also support traditional marine activities by creating new markets for their products.

All of this is a long way off, and none of it is assured. But Portland may be getting a glimpse of its future, and it is looking very bright.


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