BANGOR, Maine — A developer who bought the former Manna Ministries headquarters for $390,000 at auction Thursday will start transforming it into a moderate-income housing development within 90 days, his agent said.
Pro Realty of Bangor President David Giroux submitted the winning bid for the property at 629 Main St. and signed tentative purchase papers in the building’s central office. He said he represented a group of investors but declined to identify them.
Structurally, he said, the building is “beautiful.”
“It’s got a metal roof, and I love metal roofs; all of its windows are new; and the furnaces are almost new,” Giroux said Thursday. “All it needs is just a bunch of cosmetic stuff, and it’s in a great location near the slots [ Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway Bangor], Cross Insurance Center, and it’s on the bus route. And there’s plenty of parking.”
The investors have not determined yet the extent of renovations required in the building, which he said has 59 rooms, office space and some apartments.
The 35,000-square-foot brick structure is the former home of Manna, a faith-based nonprofit that operates a soup kitchen and food pantry. The organization has since relocated its offices to 100 Center St. in Bangor.
Machias Savings Bank took over the building after Manna, facing significant financial struggles, defaulted on a pair of mortgages. Manna had been trying unsuccessfully to sell the building for years, saying it was too large for its purposes.
Joseph Tuell, vice president of the bank, expressed satisfaction with the sale, but declined to comment on whether the bank sought a minimum price.
“At the end of the day, the bank is just happy to put someone in a vacant building,” Tuell said. “We had a good turnout today and we’re looking to close this one up quickly.”
As of Thursday, Manna also still owed nearly $27,000 in outstanding sewer and stormwater charges to the city of Bangor, said David Little, Bangor’s treasurer and tax assessor. There are six liens held against the property by the city. There are no taxes assessed to the organization because it is a nonprofit. The state also has said Manna owed the Department of Health and Human Services $1.3 million stemming from a mismanaged clinic the nonprofit ran in Medway.
The property can be transferred in a sale without the outstanding city debts being paid, Little said, but city officials understand that “the mortgage holder is selling the property subject to these charges.”
The buyer will need to pay any outstanding municipal charges, said Michael Carey, vice president of Tranzon Auction Properties of Portland, which handled the auction.
The brick building is the former home of Beal College, which sold the facility to Manna in 2004. It has a colorful history, having served as an orphanage, mental asylum, debtors prison and city farm, among other purposes. The property has an assessed value of $680,500 — $388,500 for the building, $292,000 for the land.
The building had been up for sale for four years. Manna put it on the market in 2012 with the hope of moving to another location. The organization’s asking price had dropped over time, from a high of $1.2 million to about $900,000 in the most recent listing before the auction.
Held in the building’s back parking lot, Thursday’s auction featured a dozen people, though it was difficult to determine how many were bidders. Giroux ended up in a bidding duel with one other party, an individual who declined to be identified. The bidders took several timeouts during the bidding to confer privately before a winner was declared. The auction took less than 45 minutes.
Afterward, Giroux said the primary investor in the building is a local man who has been heavily involved in other purchases in the area. That person is out of state on another project, he said.
BDN writer Nick McCrea contributed to this report.