Raymond town officials are set to take the first steps toward developing a formal economic development strategy, now that an effort to convert a warehouse on Route 302 into a business incubator is considered a dead end.

In June, Raymond code enforcement administrative assistant Danielle Loring and Milan Nevajda, a planner with Portland-based Planning Decisions Inc., will conduct a series of focus groups with local business owners, economic development groups and possibly school district officials to ascertain how the town can provide a boost to economic development.

“What we’ll be looking for from businesses is talking about things their business needs to do to hire an additional person, expand by 20 percent, move into a bigger facility,” Nevajda said. “We’re trying to get very specific feedback and see what the town can do to help or get involved in that. I’m not sure what we’re going to hear.”

The $3,000 initiative, according to Loring, will help town officials determine how Raymond can become more economically competitive. The focus groups, she said, have emerged in response to a variety of factors. A 2014 community survey found that 61 percent of respondents supported “expanding economic development efforts.”

The Raymond Revitalization Committee has also pushed for more sustained efforts on the economic development front. The collapse of a town-led effort last year to develop a business incubator, which was meant to revive manufacturing in Raymond, has led town officials to pursue a broader strategy.

“The incubator project just dealt with one project,” Loring said. “We hoped the effects would spill over into the surrounding vacancies in Raymond.

“It made more sense to go with Raymond as a whole and what would benefit Raymond as a whole community as opposed to just one property,” she added.

In fall 2013, Loring contacted Greg Cavanaugh, assistant director for the University of Southern Maine’s Campus Ventures engineering and entrepreneurship program, to discuss ways to revive Raymond’s manufacturing sector, which has declined precipitously in the last decade.

Cavanaugh suggested that the town consider partnering with the university to form a business incubator, or a facility where local entrepreneurs can secure the equipment, space and training needed to grow their micro-enterprises into viable businesses. At the facility, Campus Ventures staff and students would both connect small entrepreneurs with investors and provide manufacturing training.

So was born the Raymond Manufacturing Incubator Planning Project, a proposal to study the possibility of converting a 56,000-square-foot warehouse on 1281 Roosevelt Trail – a boat storage center owned by PRM Properties that served as the former Chipco manufacturing plant into a hive of small business enterprise. PRM Properties would rent out the facility to interested small manufacturers. If successful, the incubator could have helped Raymond’s low- and middle-income residents secure part-time or full-time employment.

While the town secured a $25,188 Community Block Development Grant to fund a study of the idea, and also signed a contract with the Portland research and planning firm Planning Decisions Inc. to conduct a feasibility study, the Campus Ventures program ran out of the grant funding that sustained its budget and was discontinued. The collapse of Campus Ventures left the proposed Raymond business incubator without a partner to provide planning and technical assistance – a key component for a successful business incubator.

In January, Planning Decisions released Part I of its feasibility study, a $10,550 series of interviews and surveys, which concluded that without the involvement of the Campus Ventures program, a Raymond business incubator is “an unpromising use.” According to the study, business incubators have high failure rates, involve large overhead costs, and generally succeed in urban areas with high job growth and a youthful, well-educated labor force. Ongoing operational subsidies are typically required, as well, according to the study. Since the 1990s, only two of the five incubators established in Maine have survived, and both “continue to operate with the benefit of heavy University of Maine support in the form of professors, grants and operating funds.”

“The report found that it was theoretically possible, but in the absence of a true champion and other resources it was difficult,” said Nevajda, the lead author of the report. “It faces significant challenges and may not be the best focus for the town at this point.”

As an alternative, Nevajda suggested an approach in which Raymond officials “re-focus the study on the broader picture,” with a goal of determining what Raymond needs to be economically competitive by 2020 and how town investments could help realize that vision.

“This is a more town-centered approach,” Nevajda wrote. “It would start with clarifying the goals that Raymond is trying to achieve. It would include a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Raymond in the broader development picture. It would lay out infrastructure and human development investments that are needed and describe a strategy for getting there.”

The $3,000 focus group initiative could be preparatory work for the proposed comprehensive economic development strategy outlined by Nevajda, which would also include an inventory of commercial and industrial real estate, a review of previous municipal economic development investments, a cost-benefit study of the potential for higher-speed Internet in Raymond, and the preparation of a final report.

According to Loring, town officials have not determined yet whether it would be wise to invest considerably more money in a full-fledged economic development strategy. A report on the focus groups is expected by the end of June.

Members of the Raymond business community said they supported the town’s efforts to boost economic development. Kevin Gagnon, the owner of the Raymond Shopping Center and a variety of other shopping centers and drug stores in the region, said he “absolutely” supported the investment in the focus group study.

“Anything to help spur new business is excellent,” he said. “If there’s a way for a municipality and local business people to help and encourage and stimulate new business, absolutely I’m all for it. I think it’s a great idea. We need more of it.”

Carrie Colby, chairwoman of the Raymond Revitalization Committee and owner of real estate firm Premier Properties, said she would ultimately like to see Raymond hire a full-time economic development director. According to Colby, her hometown of Belfast recruited 30 businesses in one year after hiring an economic development director.

“When I lived there it was a ghost town,” she said.

For now, Colby said, she strongly supports the steps toward drafting an economic developing strategy.

“I think what we struggle with mostly, and Windham struggles with, too, is we don’t have a downtown,” she said. “We don’t have a place where people can park their car and walk to different shops.”

“We’re kind of starting at square 1,” she said.