ROCKLAND, Maine — A school that has taught traditional wooden boatbuilding and seamanship skills for decades has sold off part of its Rockland waterfront property.
The sale, however, is to a neighbor that will be working with the maritime organization on cooperative projects.
The sale of the property by Atlantic Challenge Foundation Inc. to 711 Main Street LLC was filed Monday in the Knox County Registry of Deeds.
Tom Weis, chairman of the Atlantic Challenge Board, said 711 Main Street LLC also is the owner of the neighboring Steel House, a center for design, technology and education.
The property sold includes a building at 643 Main St. that had been used for administrative offices as well as land in the rear stretching to the waterfront. Weis, who also is a co-founder and a member of The Steel House, said the center will use the building it acquired for expanding its educational programs.
Atlantic Challenge is retaining the building at 655 Main St. used for offices and boatbuilding. The organization also will keep the dock and remaining waterfront property.
Atlantic Challenge had put the entire 2.5 acre parcel, which included 822 feet of water frontage, and buildings up for sale in the fall of 2014.
The Steel House is a taxable organization, and Atlantic Challenge is a nonprofit organization exempt from property taxes.
Weis said the finances of Atlantic Challenge have turned around, and there was no need to sell the entire parcel.
Lance Lee founded the Apprenticeshop in 1972 at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, according to the organization’s website.
The Apprenticeshop moved from Bath to Rockport in 1982 and in the early 1990s to Nobleboro before moving to Rockland in 1995. The Apprenticeshop became part of the Atlantic Challenge Foundation, which purchased the current site in 1999.
Weis said one service being added to Atlantic Challenge next year will be a livery service, in which community members can rent boats. This is in addition to the adult and youth sailing lessons offered each summer.