Bucksport is trying to reacquire a vacant lot from a developer who did not follow through on an agreement to build a mixed-use development on Main Street in exchange for a $1 purchase price.
But Ellsworth-based SFS Development LLC has not responded to multiple letters from the town, which plans to escalate, according to a town official’s report to councilors earlier last week.
The lack of development on the still-vacant site is a bump in the town’s long-running efforts to diversify its downtown and bring in new businesses for visitors and its tax base since the Verso paper mill closed in 2014.
It’s also another stalled effort to bring needed housing to the town, where a separate 58-unit affordable housing development proposed around the same time by area nonprofit Penquis is on hold indefinitely due to funding challenges.
The roughly 1-acre property at 27 Main St. once included a house. In 2013, an apartment building at neighboring 31 Main St. was destroyed by a fire, leaving another vacant lot now owned by the town.
The Town Council voted 5-1 to sell the 27 Main parcel to SFS in March 2023.
Bucksport’s goal for selling the property was to increase commercial spaces on Main Street, according to a resolution approving the sale at the time. The town had also identified a need for more market-rate rental housing, and SFS’ proposal combined both priorities.
The initial plan in Bucksport included townhouse-style housing and two commercial buildings on the site, the Bangor Daily News previously reported.
Bucksport had heard numerous proposals for reusing the property since acquiring it more than a decade before, according to that resolution.
SFS Development included Randy Sinclair of Sinclair Development Corp. and Steve Fernald of Statewide Property Management, both based in Ellsworth. The LLC recently did construct Coastal Estates, a 120-site mobile home development in Hancock for people 55 or older.
The sale required work to be done on the Bucksport property within three years of June 5, 2023, according to Community and Economic Development Director Rich Rotella, and gave the town the right to buy it back for $1 if it was not.
The lot remains vacant. SFS and its attorney have not responded to multiple letters from the town about repurchasing the property, Rotella said in a report to councilors last week.
“Further steps will be taken in July to retrieve the property,” he said.
He couldn’t be reached for further comment last week.
The town also has a $2,381 lien against the property, which was filed last month in the Hancock County Registry of Deeds. SFS Development owns other properties in the county, according to the registry.
The registered agent for the LLC, Daniel A. D’Auteuil Jr. of the Lewiston-based law firm Skelton Taintor & Abbott, did not return a request for comment Friday. Sinclair, whose business number is listed as a contact for SFS Development on the company’s Facebook, also did not return a request for comment Friday.
