The result was the opening in 2002 of FirstPark Business and Technology Center, a 285-acre technology-friendly business park just off I-95 along the Oakland-Waterville town line.

FirstPark boasts state-of-the-art redundant fiber optic cable with transmission facilities in close proximity, integrated services digital network (ISDN) and DS3 digital telephone service available for all its tenants, of which there are currently over a dozen. Many of these businesses are medical and health-related, where high technology plays an ever-increasing role in patient evaluation and delivery of services. Also moving into FirstPark was T-Mobile USA, which plans to employ 700 people, thus injecting the local economy with a projected $25 million annually.

FirstPark represents a true regional approach to tackling economic challenges common to many towns in the area. While Waterville is the population center of the region that banded together to first conceptualize and then create FirstPark, the business complex is the result of the combined efforts of 24 communities across two counties banding together to shape their common economic destiny.

With 24 towns in the Waterville area investing in FirstPark, these communities were able to do together what none of them would have been able to do alone.