A group of Belfast residents hopes to buy a local educational center and event space from the University of Maine System, after it was closed down last summer and put up for sale or lease on Wednesday.
The group hopes to reopen the Hutchinson Center and make it available for the same types of programs that were previously held there. Those classes include Senior College instruction, training for nursing students, and regional and statewide conferences.
The UMaine System now says the facility on Route 3 has an appraised value of $2.5 million and that it will accept bids for sale, lease or other purposes through Feb. 5.
“It’s just an amazing facility,” said Judy Stein, who helped form the Committee for the Future of the Hutchinson Center after the UMaine System closed it down last summer as part of a cost-saving effort.
The committee has inspected the building and worked to assess the costs of running it, and if successful in acquiring the facility, it hopes to create a nonprofit organization that would manage it and rent it out to other organizations. That model has worked for other community centers, Stein said, and it also holds promise in Belfast.
The committee is now in talks with local officials, but it is not yet able to publicly share any plans for how it would fund the purchase, according to Stein. Its goal is to acquire the center in spring and have it running again by next fall.
A press release included a general statement of support from Belfast Mayor Eric Sanders, who said, “The Hutchinson Center is one of the great advantages of Belfast. The work of this committee is critical.”
The center first opened in 2000 with funding provided by the MBNA corporation to expand educational opportunities in the midcoast.