After years of deterioration, legal action, environmental studies and an eventual takeover by the City of Belfast, the former Bradbury Manor at 74 High Street is finally headed for demolition.
The Belfast City Council has approved Economic Development Director Thomas Kittredge’s recommendation to award a $264,065 contract to Lakeside Concrete Cutting Inc. for environmental remediation and demolition of the long-vacant building, clearing the way for work to begin this fall.
The decision represents one of the final chapters in a property saga that has stretched for decades and, more recently, consumed years of city attention as officials sought to address what they considered an increasingly serious public safety hazard near the edge of downtown.
Under the action approved by the council, Belfast accepted bids submitted by EnviroVantage, J.E. Butler LLC and Lakeside Concrete Cutting, rejected a bid from Dan Ford Enterprises, and awarded the project to Lakeside as the lowest qualified bidder. TRC, the city’s environmental consultant for the federally funded cleanup, reviewed the proposals, sought clarifying information from bidders and recommended the award.
The city issued its request for bids July 24 and received four proposals by the Sept. 1 deadline. According to the city’s schedule, Lakeside is expected to begin removal and demolition work Oct. 15, with that phase continuing through Dec. 31. Loaming and seeding of the cleared property are scheduled for April 26 through April 30, 2027.
The work will remove a building with a history extending back more than a century.
The three-story, wood-frame structure was built in 1922 as Bradbury Memorial Hospital. Hospital operations continued until the early 1960s, after which the building was converted to a nursing home. It operated in that capacity until 1995 and has essentially been vacant ever since. The building occupies a 0.27-acre property at 74 High Street.
What followed the nursing home’s closure was a long period of decline. By 2020, Belfast officials considered conditions bad enough to condemn the property. On Dec. 15 of that year, the City Council authorized Planning and Codes Director Bub Fournier to work with the city attorney to prosecute code violations involving the former Bradbury Manor.
The city’s involvement deepened from there. In July 2021, the council authorized an application to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s Municipal Brownfields Site Assessment Program for 74 High Street, beginning the process of documenting environmental conditions that would have to be addressed before the site could safely be reused.
Environmental investigations eventually identified asbestos-containing materials, lead-based paint and other hazardous materials and wastes within the building. Later assessments associated with Belfast’s federal Brownfields effort also identified contamination involving polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals and volatile organic compounds.
The physical condition of the structure was an equally serious problem.
A structural assessment following a January 2024 inspection found extensive water intrusion, mold growth and rot, along with collapsed floors and failing foundation walls. The condition had deteriorated to the point that the building was considered unsafe for conventional environmental abatement or renovation. The assessment concluded that demolition would be necessary to allow the hazardous materials to be dealt with safely.
By then, Belfast had already spent years trying to force action by the private owner.
A court order directed that the building be demolished, but the property remained standing. The city also pursued an $80,000 lawsuit that ultimately amounted to $126,900 when civil penalties and legal expenses were included, according to city materials reported in 2024. Still, the deteriorating building remained.
That impasse ultimately prompted the city to take the unusual step of acquiring the property itself.
In October 2024, the council voted unanimously to seize 74 High Street through eminent domain after the owner failed to comply with the demolition order. City officials argued that taking control was necessary to remove the public safety threat and position Belfast to seek outside funding for the expensive environmental cleanup and demolition.
That strategy proved successful.
Belfast applied to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Brownfields Cleanup funding in November 2024, pairing Bradbury Manor with another city-owned property — the former Waldo County Superior Courthouse at 137 Church Street. In May 2025, the EPA selected Belfast for a $2 million Brownfields Cleanup Grant covering the two sites. The federal money was awarded through funding provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The courthouse and Bradbury Manor present very different redevelopment challenges. Belfast intends to preserve and renovate the historic courthouse for eventual municipal use. At Bradbury Manor, however, decades of abandonment and structural deterioration have left demolition as the planned course.
The city subsequently hired TRC Environmental Corp. to oversee its federally funded Brownfields work. TRC has coordinated environmental planning and now reviewed the contractors seeking to perform the actual cleanup and demolition at 74 High Street.
The city formally advertised the Bradbury Manor abatement and demolition project July 24. The bid package covers environmental remediation as well as demolition, reflecting the fact that the structure cannot simply be razed as an ordinary abandoned building. Hazardous building materials must be handled and disposed of in accordance with environmental requirements before the property can be cleared.
Once Lakeside completes the work, the city will be left with something it has not had at 74 High Street for more than 30 years: a cleared site with the potential for productive reuse.
Belfast’s Brownfields planning documents envision the property eventually being redeveloped for a mixture of residential and commercial purposes, although approval of the demolition contract does not commit the city to a particular redevelopment project.
For now, the significance of the council’s action is more immediate.
A building that opened as a hospital in 1922, served generations of residents first as a medical facility and later as a nursing home, then spent more than three decades vacant and deteriorating, is finally approaching its end. What began as a code-enforcement problem eventually became a court case, a public safety issue, an eminent-domain proceeding and a federally funded Brownfields project.
With the $264,065 demolition and remediation contract now approved, Belfast has moved from years of trying to compel someone else to deal with Bradbury Manor to having the property, the federal funding and the contractor necessary to finish the job.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.