LEWISTON — Its location and views are among the best in the area — overlooking the Androscoggin River on one side and downtown Lisbon Street on the other.
The Peck building at 184 Main St. became Peck’s Department Store in 1899 and was most recently an L.L. Bean call center until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
As cities struggle to fill empty office buildings, owner Jason Levesque — local businessman and Auburn mayor — explained his concept is not just about filling an empty building. “We’re turning the whole traditional commercial leasing on its head,” he said. “When you come in here, you pick out what you need for space, but we also want to make sure that you have the ability to grow.”
Renamed the Peck Center, it has 64,000 square feet of space over four very different floors. There are a lot of built-in amenities that include fiber-optic wiring throughout, a gym, showers and locker rooms, cafeteria, classrooms, meeting rooms, individual offices and an attached 596-space covered parking deck.
“We want folks that may or may not be seeing customers or clients,” Levesque explained. “We want people that want to be part of something and not just rent out an office for five hours a week. This is your office, private space, but shared amenities. And that is really the differentiating factor between us and quote unquote co-working.”
The building is next to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Central Maine Medical Center and its affiliated nursing school. The CMMC parking lot is where more than 300 market-rate apartments are planned, with 150 already approved by the city. It’s also an area identified in the Lewiston Riverfront Masterplan for mixed use development at Island Point and the extension of the Riverwalk.
Levesque refers to it as health adjacent. “That means that anything that has to do with health, wellness, physical fitness, mental fitness, whether it be a psychiatrist, a massage therapist, physical therapist, or occupational therapist that needs a room or a large room, but can also utilize the fitness facility.”
A fitness gym once used by employees of L.L. Bean is ready for use inside the newly named Peck Center at 184 Main St. in Lewiston. Owner Jason Levesque has plans to redevelop the four-story building into flexible workspaces. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
Unlike other business models where people rent a desk and everything else is a la carte, for instance use of a conference room is extra, the Peck Center model is all inclusive, whether it is one person or a small satellite office for a larger company, or a professional firm that needs room to expand if they need it. “The longer membership you get, the more flexible we will be with price,” Levesque said.
The Peck Center has classrooms set up and wired, meeting rooms and conference rooms member tenants or anyone can rent out for the day, week or month. Flexibility is the operative word.
“You don’t even have to be in this building to rent that out,” Levesque notes. “You could come and say, listen, I need to train my employees or I’m having a regional convention here … you have all your facilities, everything’s there. You come, you train, you leave.”
The top floor is more of an executive suite floor, and Levesque said any of the floors can be subdivided to suit a particular tenant’s needs — whether that be furniture and décor or an independent firewall and internet system.
It’s a unique concept for the Lewiston-Auburn area and Levesque said he already has one commitment. Member pricing starts at $375 a month and a private office can be rented for less than $1,000 a month.
Full details and contact information can be found on the new website: peckcenter.com.
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