Nicole Clavet of Lewiston has opened Cruzin Slice, a food trailer with a muscle car theme. She said her boyfriend, Jared Webster of Auburn, has been a huge help getting ready. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal Buy this Photo
This week with Buzz is amped with major development teases, the new “Home of the Creton Pizza,” new construction and actual ampage.
First up: The pizza, right?
Nicole Clavet of Lewiston has opened the Cruzin Slice food trailer after a year of building it out, securing permits and perfecting recipes.
Clavet, who has been with TD Bank for 22 years, said work has taken her to India twice, where she discovered and enjoyed naan, a simple but tasty flatbread.
“I’ve always wanted to have my own food truck,” she said. “You can’t just open a food trailer and just have regular blah (food), you need something unique and different that nobody else had, so I started to think what are my favorite foods or what did I grow up on that would be good on a pizza, and then I thought, well, I eat creton on toast, on sandwiches with mustard and I thought I should try putting that on (naan), put a little mustard sauce on there and cook it up with some mozzarella cheese and see how that goes, and there it was.”
The popular French Canadian dish with ground pork and spices is just one of the menu items. Others pair naan with boneless chicken or lean beef.
“When it bakes through it gets a little crispy and it’s just a great platform for all kinds of toppings,” Clavet said. “I have a few pizzas that have red sauce on them, but then I have other pizzas like the ‘Clean GTO,’ that’s going to be a shredded, boneless lean chicken with green pepper sauce on it.
“It’s not your typical slice of pizza that you really have to dab with a napkin to eat it; it’s definitely on the healthier side but tastes really good,” she said.
She also plans to have sandwiches and paninis.
As she geared up for the food trailer’s debut last weekend, she likened it to how she’s felt ahead of one of her fitness competitions.
“The nervousness is now kicking in,” said Clavet. “I competed four times, so it’s up on the stage in a tiny little suit and you’re just doing your quarter turns with everyone staring at you, so I’ve gotten used to it. We’re very excited. It’s been a year and it’s been a long time coming, and everybody’s been so supportive.”
Upcoming dates include Grateful Grain Brewing Co. in Monmouth on Saturday.
New construction
A concept rendering by Bild Architecture for a new project at 198 Blake St. in Lewiston by Raise-Op.
On Monday night, the Lewiston Planning Board approved a new $2.7 million warehouse behind the former Promenade Mall and a new nine-unit, $3 million apartment complex at 198 Blake St. by Raise-Op, the nonprofit housing cooperative.
The building will sit on a combined four lots and have three stories with four one-bedroom units, two two-bedroom units and three three-bedroom units, according to its application.
“The Planning Board was highly complimentary of the (project) for providing a nice-sized backyard, design features that are in line with the soon to be adopted Design Standards and a cooperative living arrangement,” said City Planner Doug Greene.
Cooperative Manager Craig Saddlemire has a virtual presentation planned for the project Wednesday, Oct. 7.
He said groundbreaking would be summer 2021 at the soonest.
New substation
Central Maine Power is building one new substation on Deer Rips Road in Auburn and updating another, a $7 million construction project.
In its development review application to the city, the company said the new modern 34.5kV substation will interconnect with six adjacent transmission lines and restructure an existing substation at the end of Deer Rips Road.
The company also noted that it isn’t part of any other larger project. CMP bought a house at 78 Deer Rips Road and took it down for the build. The 10-acre lot is largely surrounded by farmland and forest.
Eric Cousens, deputy director of economic and community development, said CMP has city permits for a building and substation foundations.
Its application says CMP also needs Maine Department of Environmental Protection approval.
“Both the Deer Rips substation and another — Great Falls — are part of what is essentially a portfolio of CMP substation modernization projects to improve service reliability,” said spokeswoman Catharine Hartnett. “Both are recognized as needing to be updated, but we do not have either substation on a firm construction schedule as they need to be considered in relation to other substation projects across our service area and prioritized accordingly.”
Great Falls’ construction costs are estimated at $5 million and could change depending upon the timetable, she said.
Whenever the project does start, construction should take about a year.
New guesses welcome
The $7 million project is just one of many developments permitted in August by the city, according to Cousens.
And there may be a lot more around the corner.
A whole lot more.
In the next few months, “we’re anticipating applications for a new commercial subdivision at the corner of Hotel and Merrow (roads) and 100,000 square feet-plus of new industrial space,” Cousens said Tuesday. “There is exciting activity near Exit 75 anticipated soon and the Auburn Enterprise Center has some promising leads.”
That’s three wait-and-sees.
“I anticipate public applications for some of them the second week of October and some of them by the second week of November,” he said. “Chipotle and Holy Donut are exciting but just the icing on the cake for the significant new residential and commercial development in the works for Auburn right now.”
And if that doesn’t have you wide awake . . .
For National Coffee Day, let’s end with a few fun coffee stats.
From WorkWise Software, the top searched coffee order in Maine: Cold brew.
And from MyFriendsCoffee.com, Maine is one of 16 states with fewer than 3,000 baristas. The state with the most at 60,940? California.
Quick hits about business comings, goings and happenings. Have a Buzzable tip? Contact staff writer Kathryn Skelton at 689-2844 or kskelton@sunjournal.com.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
