The lighthouse stands on a jetty in the harbor. Nearby, a maritime museum attracts visitors, and shipping containers are stacked high off a port entrance.

A shopping mall draws customers, and fishing boats bob at the docks.

It could be a scene from any number of coastal communities in Maine - South Portland and Bug Light, Portland and the containers, Bath and the museum.

Except for the wind power business park.

The local economic development agency opened the Speckenbuttel industrial park several years ago after investing 50 million euros for the infrastructure, from roads to heavy-duty rail lines and docks for handling several hundred tons of turbine superstructures.

Four major companies have moved in, investing 250 million euros to construct buildings and equip them. It created 1,000 new jobs for the region, and another 500 are expected over the next two to three years.

It's definitely not Maine.

But could it be?

Gov. John Baldacci's trade mission to Spain and Germany visited Bremerhaven on Thursday, spending much of the day at Speckenbuttel, touring companies and meeting with local officials and business executives.

The group started at a part of the park where a company makes the 500-ton steel tripods to support shallow-water offshore wind turbines.

Steve Levesque's eyes lit up as he took in the scene: At one end of the business park, a company that put together the turbine mechanics. At the other, the massive tripods and other pieces of superstructure. Rail to bring them together, assemble them and ship them out on barges.

Levesque, executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, which seeks to redevelop the Brunswick Naval Air Station, immediately saw a BNAS-Bath Iron Works connection.

Build the mechanicals in a hangar at the decommissioned BNAS, send them by rail to BIW, which could cut the steel and make the superstructures. Ship it all out down the Kennebec to wherever it's needed.

"We can help revitalize a lot of Maine's manufacturing economy," said Levesque. "If you have the will, you can do anything."

Mathias Grabs of the state of Bremen's economic development agency said repeatedly that any such development area needs lots and lots of space. After modules are made, they're often stored for months, sometimes for more than a year, as the project timing crystallizes.

There's plenty of space at BNAS, said Levesque, who is looking at various alternative energy production options for the 1,487-acre base, such as solar and hydrogen. American taxpayers have already invested $4 billion in BNAS, he noted.

"You don't have to rebuild," he said.

The superstructure work being done at Speckenbuttel could easily be done at BIW's land-level facility, said Lisa Read of BIW.