Millinocket plans to sell old school

MILLINOCKET – One of Millinocket’s oldest schools, the Aroostook Avenue School, is up for sale.

The town, which acquired the more-than-80-year-old building from the school department nearly three years ago, will consider offers of at least $50,000. The three-story building has about 20,000 square feet of space and sits on a 1.38-acre lot in the downtown area.

The Town Council on Thursday authorized Town Manager Gene Conlogue to seek bids for the property, but took no action to officially close the building by June 30. Conlogue said officials want to see whether there is any interest in the building before they decide to close it.

Officials would like to get out of the landlord business by selling the property and putting it on the tax rolls, which would mean additional revenues for the town.

The town has four tenants in the building. They are the school superintendent’s office; the Katahdin Region Day Care; Chickadee Pre-School Program; and the Maine Department of Human Services. All pay rent to the town, except DHS. Also, the town uses space in a portion of the building for storage.

Superintendent Brent Colbry said he had kept his office in the building to help the town. The school department pays about half of the rent revenues.

“If they close it, we will have to go find other space in the community,” said Colbry. “I can’t go to the schools. We don’t have any room.”

Conlogue said that, typically, the rent from tenants more than paid the cost to operate the building. He said the difference between revenues and expenses was a net gain of $2,000 to $3,000.

“This year will be an exception due to an emergency repair to the sprinkler system,” said the manager.

Conlogue estimates it would cost between $8,000 and $10,000 a year for the town to heat and insure the building if it were closed and left vacant.

Officials agreed the building might be more marketable to some prospective buyers with rent-paying tenants in it.

“There are other revenue opportunities in the building that could be had by a new owner,” said Conlogue.

The manager said the day care and the preschool provide important services to many residents.

“A hardship could occur if the building is sold and they [tenants] cannot reach a reasonable accommodation with the new owner for rent,” said the manager.

Conlogue said because of the groups’ nonprofit status, they did not have the resources necessary to pay for major renovations that could be required if they had to relocate to other quarters.

The manager plans to meet today with tenants of the building.