Civic center board favors building over renovating

PORTLAND – Cumberland County Civic Center trustees have shelved any plans to enlarge or renovate the 25-year-old arena, concluding that it makes more sense to build a replacement.

But the board made it plain it was not prepared at this point to ask voters to pick up the tab for a new building, which would cost an estimated $40 million to $50 million.

Trustees decided to take a year to consider if the idea is feasible.

Funding for a new arena would include money from the state, the private sector and county taxpayers. Private money would come from selling naming rights and luxury boxes.

“The right thing to do would be to build a new arena, if we can determine how we are going to pay for it,” said Anthony McDonald, chairman of a long-range planning committee.

Some local officials are skeptical. Portland City Councilor Jim Cloutier said the plan “wouldn’t have a prayer” in tough fiscal times. He said the city’s contribution for a new arena would be $15 million, or enough to build two elementary schools.

Officials of the Libra Foundation offered the city land and $20 million to build a new arena three years ago. That arena might be open for business today if county commissioners had been willing to help the city by contributing $5 million to $10 million toward the project, Cloutier said.

Support in other parts of the county remains a question mark.

Otisfield residents were so upset at the county’s issuance of $2.5 million in bonds to build the civic center in the 1970s that they seceded and joined Oxford County. Brunswick residents also voted to secede; the effort failed only because Sagadahoc County wouldn’t accept them.