BANGOR, Maine — Penobscot County and a local church might get into a bidding war thanks to a tentative purchase offer county officials have agreed to make on the former YMCA building.
The Penobscot County Commissioners voted 3-0 during their regular meeting on Tuesday to authorize a purchase attempt of the property at 127 Hammond St. in hopes of using the building to expand the neighboring county jail. Board members declined to name the proposed price.
“It has features that we think we can work with,” board Chairman Peter Baldacci said after the vote. “Once the purchase goes through like we anticipate, we will put together a group of citizens to work with us on our next steps, look at the building closely and figure out our plans for the future.”
The Rev. Bobby Bledsoe, pastor of CityReach Church of Bangor, said his church’s board of directors will likely agree to make a counteroffer to buy the building, which the church uses for meetings and programs. The board is due to meet on Wednesday morning.
“We want to see the county succeed in everything they do, but I have a due diligence [responsibility] to represent the people of CityReach and then also the people of Bangor,” Bledsoe said Tuesday. “We are invested in this building.”
Attorney Adam Shub, who represents the building’s owner, 127 Hammond St., LLC, declined to comment on the potential offers.
“There are client confidentiality issues, and it [the situation] is in a constant state of flux,” Shub said Tuesday. “It doesn’t need any more publicity.”
If the county’s purchase is successful, it will relieve overcrowding at the Penobscot County Jail and successfully re-purpose a large downtown building, Baldacci said.
Baldacci said last month that tentative plans include moving the current cramped jail intake area, nonviolent female inmates and the holding cells for inmates in jail fewer than 72 hours into the former YMCA, once it is remodeled.
Baldacci estimated that the cost of building a new jail would be more than $40 million and that the cost of boarding out inmates because of overcrowding at the jail was expected soon to cost between $1 million and $1.5 million per year. The estimated cost of buying the YMCA property and renovating the building have not been made public, but county officials have said that expansion would be less expensive.
Bledsoe dismissed the county’s earlier threat to acquire the building through eminent domain as a power play intended to get the attention of bankers who he said had squashed previous offers on the property by the county and church.
Bledsoe previously said that CityReach offered $800,000 for the property last year. The county never revealed how much it offered.
Baldacci said recently that the church is free to make any offer it wants but, legally, the commissioners still could decide it is in the public’s best interest to take the building by eminent domain.
“We have a population crisis here,” County Administrator Bill Collins told the commissioners in February about the 157-bed jail. “Today, we have 186 inmates — 163 males and 23 females. Forty-seven of those are boarded out with 28 at the Cumberland County Jail [in Portland] at a cost of $70 per day, per inmate.”
The original mortgage on the YMCA property was for $1.3 million, but but the amount still owed to TD Bank has not been revealed publicly. The bank, Bledsoe said, hasn’t wanted to sell the property for less than what it is owed.
The building is in violation of Bangor’s fire code, Jeremy Martin, director of code enforcement for the city, said last week. Among its problems are an incomplete sprinkler system and missing fire separation walls.
The county, which would submit a new plan for building renovations if it acquires the property, would not be responsible for fixing the current problems but would have to comply with the city’s building codes, Martin said.
The building is owned by the estate of William Buxton, who bought the property in 2013 with plans to open a denturist school. He later abandoned those plans and died in 2016. Current tenants, who have conditional occupancy permits, are CityReach Church and Young’s MMA, a martial arts gym, Martin said. The church’s lease on the space does not expire until April 30, 2018.
BDN writer Judy Harrison contributed to this report.