By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – The building expansion project at MMG Insurance is on track, and officials anticipate crews wrapping up in September.
“For all intents and purposes, the new section is all done,” said Larry Shaw, president and chief executive officer of MMG. “One of the major parts of the project has been renovating the existing space, and that’s in the process of going on right now.”
Two weeks ago, about 50 employees moved into an area of the existing building that’s been totally renovated.
“That will leave us with just one more additional area to be renovated and brought up-to-date,” said Shaw, “and we’re hoping by Oct. 1 to have everything completely done.”
The building project was initiated as a means to review space needs associated with the growth of MMG, as well as a strong consideration of how the company’s job functions/departments would evolve over the next 10 to 15 years.
“We did some brainstorming talking about how the different generations will work in the future,” said Shaw, “and one of the interesting concepts is that the Gen Yers seem to be more interested in teamwork space as opposed to their own individual workspace. Therefore we have a lot of areas – both formal and more informal – for people to meet, discuss issues and work on things together. We have a lot more meeting rooms throughout the building. We’re trying to allow the employees to be more efficient in the future.”
The $6.5 million project will increase square footage from 26,000 feet to 46,000 feet, and the expansion is expected to accommodate up to 200 workers.
“We’ve talked about adding 50 jobs over the next 10 years,” Shaw said, noting that MMG Insurance currently has 125 people working out of the Presque Isle home office. “Typically we’ve added anywhere from four to nine jobs a year over the last five years. As the company grows, we hire more people.”
As part of the project design, numerous energy efficiency and environmental considerations were made. The new features include:
• Water from the large new parking lot is drained through an innovative sand filtration system to improve the run-off water quality, cool the water temperature off the pavement, and slow the outflow.
• Site lighting was designed to minimize uplight and lateral light pollution.
• Equipment motors have variable frequency drives (VFD) for electrical efficiency.
• All lighting was designed to meet Efficiency Maine standards, utilizing high performance T8 lamps, compact fluorescent lamps, manual dimming and automatic wide area dimming based on ambient day lighting levels.
• Work cubicles have low walls with some glass splines to increase natural light penetration into the building and reduce the “maze effect.”
“It’s a fairly structured, basic design,” said Shaw. “Some of the work stations are set up back-to-back and teams will sit in a section together. I believe there’s less maze than there used to be.”
Many technology upgrades were also performed including an expansion of video conferencing, an upgraded voice over Internet protocol wiring design to simplify phone and computer network connections, a state-of-the-art climate controlled data center; and the latest technology in cubicle design.
Though concrete numbers aren’t available at this time, Matt McHatten, senior vice president of external operations, said the energy efficient cost savings would be “substantial.”
“Our old building was designed to handle about 65 to 70 people, and the system was really working overtime,” he said. “With the new building, the lighting system has been certified through Efficiency Maine. As the sunlight gets stronger during the day, the lights dim and then come back up the darker it gets outside.
“With a bigger building we’ll be using a lot more energy,” said McHatten, “and since energy costs in the future aren’t likely to go down, anything we could do to make it more efficient was really important to us.”
The building was designed by local architect Mark Carter of North Peak Architecture.
“He has come up with what we consider a brilliant design of taking an existing building and connecting it with a new structural set up,” said Shaw. “It was important that it didn’t seem like two separate buildings, and it doesn’t. It’s connected, and it looks great. We’re very happy.”
“The general contractor – Cyr Construction – and all primary sub-contractors (Soderberg Construction, M&M Sheet Metal, Armstrong Engineering, County Electric and Aroostook Plumbing and Heating) are local, too,” said Shaw.
MMG Insurance is planning an open house for October so the public can tour the new facility.
