Construction workers have been busy on Port-Authority owned properties this summer as a wave of new industrial development projects take place.

Expansions by two local businesses and lease continuations with two long-standing companies on Port Authority properties were approved by the Duluth Seaway Port Authority board of commissioners at its July meeting. Specifically:

Grandmaison Photographic Studios is scheduled to purchase 1.6 acres of land at Airpark, the Port Authority-owned industrial complex adjacent to the Duluth International Airport.

Lake States Lumber/Innovative Pine Technology will lease three additional acres adjacent to its site at the Port Au-thority’s waterfront Clure Public Marine Terminal.

Lloyd’s, Inc., agreed to a one-year extension of a lease for office and warehouse space at Airpark.

Seelye Plastics, Inc., agreed to a three-year extension of a lease for space at the Clure Terminal.

Dan Grandmaison, president of Grandmaison Photographic Studios, has been searching for a larger site for his studio to grow into for several years.

“The wooded landscape at Airpark will offer a variety of backdrops for outdoor portraits, and the site’s convenient access to the airport will assist with our aerial photography projects,” said Grandmaison. “I expect to add to our current workforce of five once the expansion is complete,” he said.

The planned move to Airpark is contingent upon the sale of the company’s Duluth location on Haines Road, where it has resided since 1975.

Lake States Lumber/Innovative Pine Technology’s $3 million remanufacturing and distribution facility opened on a nine-acre site at the Clure Terminal in June 2003, becoming Minnesota’s first factory to pressure treat lumber without using arsenic.

The present parcel includes a 22,000-square-foot treatment facility with 5,000 square feet of office space and showrooms. The three-acre expansion will ensure there is plenty of room for adding additional equipment and allow for adequate open storage of the company’s foreign and domestic forest products.

The company currently has 25 full-time employees and will add to that number if output is increased via expansion onto the new property.

Established in 1987, Lloyd’s, Inc., is a Minnesota corporation that manufactures Lloyd’s All-Purpose Cleaner. The company entered into an agreement in 1995 to lease 2,600 square feet of space at Airpark to consolidate production of its product and accommodate expansion. The lease has now been extended through July 2005, at which time the company will decide if it requires additional space for its operations.

Seelye Plastics, Inc., located its operations in 6,750 feet of space at the Clure Terminal in 1991. In 1995, the Port Authority purchased a mezzanine addition for Seelye and installed new heavy-duty electrical service to accommodate expansion of the company’s fabrication and machining repair operations. The company has extended its lease through October 2007.

To date, 51 companies employing 1,075 people operate on Port Authority properties at Airpark and on the waterfront.