ROCKLAND, Maine — A local developer has made an offer to purchase the city-owned land where the public services garage is located.
The city council will consider next Monday night whether to put the property out to bid.
Rufus Williams Jr. of Rockport contacted the city in December and again in January about the availability of the property, on which he would like to build a complex for industrial production, warehousing and offices.
Specific details about the project have not been released. A telephone message left for Williams Tuesday morning was not immediately returned.
The city-owned land covers 4.4 acres, but Assistant City Manager Audra Caler-Bell said Monday night that Williams also would acquire some adjacent private properties for the project to move forward.
Williams also is looking at sites in Thomaston and Warren but has said that the Rockland site is his top priority, Caler-Bell said.
Williams, through his company Park St. LLC, undertook a 37,000-square-foot expansion of a warehouse on Park Street in Rockland in 2013 that served FMC.
City Manager James Chaousis said Tuesday that if the city council agrees to put the land out to bid, the city would need to find an alternative location for its public services garage.
The land is tax exempt currently because it is city-owned, but the city has an assessed value on it of $182,500. Williams said he would either want the city to remove the garage before he purchased it or have the cost of removal and remediation of the land deducted from any sale price. The proposed purchase price offered by Williams is not being released by the city until bids, if sought, are received.
Last year, Rockland Energy Center was given an option by the city for purchasing both the public services land as well as the adjacent land where City Hall is located. That option expired when Rockland Energy looked to a private property site.
The public services garage is a 7,200-square-foot 1950s metal building, which city officials have repeatedly said has significant deficiencies. The city twice placed a bond referendum before the voters to build a new facility but residents rejected it — the first time in 2007 and the second time in 2012. The most recent time, residents voted 895-881 against borrowing $2.9 million. The council mulled going back to voters with a scaled-back project in 2013 but decided against that direction.
Last year, the city agreed to given an option to a developer who expressed interest in building a manufacturing plant on the final city-owned parcel in the industrial park. Caler-Bell said Monday night that the manufacturer is now looking at expanding on a site they already own and operate in another community. The identity of that developer — other than the name Rockland Industrial Park North — was never revealed.