Brewer couple proposes Maine Avenue day care

BANGOR – A proposal to create a day care center in one of the buildings formerly used by the University of Maine System’s chancellor and his staff is headed to the City Council.

During a meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, the nine-member council will consider granting a Brewer couple tentative developer status, or exclusive negotiating rights, for the so-called trustees building, a one-story wood-frame building with 10,462 square feet.

Still up for grabs at 107 Maine Ave. are Auburn Hall, a two-story brick building with 14,548 square feet of space, and Building 26, a long, narrow brick building most recently used for cold storage with 4,746 square feet of space.

The buildings sit on about 5 acres with frontage on Maine Avenue, according to the city’s marketing material provided by Steven Bolduc, a city development officer who has been marketing the now-vacant buildings.

The proposal submitted by Liz and Paul Leonard calls for the development of a children’s learning center.

The Leonards’ offer was one of two the city received this spring, when it put out its call for potential redevelopers.

The other was from the Warren Center for Communication and Learning, which wants to expand.

After reviewing the two proposals, however, councilors rejected both, and only the Leonards returned with an amended offer, City Solicitor Norman Heitmann said after a meeting Wednesday of the council’s business and economic development committee.

During the meeting, the panel, chaired by Councilor Richard Greene, voted to recommend that the full council grant the Leonards the tentative developer status they are seeking through June 26.

In their original proposal, the couple noted that they have reached an agreement with Children’s Creative Learning Center, a California-based child care provider that owns or operates 19 child care centers on the West Coast.

The center, they said, would create 25 jobs, at least 18 full-time positions with benefits and seven part-time positions for younger workers.

The center would be the first certified facility of its kind in the city, Liz Leonard said during a meeting earlier this year with city councilors.

As a starting point, the Leonards offered the city $359,000 for the property in its current condition, and requested that the city help with some of the redevelopment costs.

Heitmann said that the couple’s current offer calls for a purchase price of $475,000 for the trustees building and up to 1.8 acres, and no financial assistance from the city.

Once part of the former Dow Air Force Base, the property at 107 Main Ave. in recent years was the home of the UMS chancellor’s office.

Last fall, the chancellor’s office and its more than 100 employees moved downtown into newly renovated space in the historic Grant Building as part of a property swap with the city.

Under the deal, the university assumed ownership of the upper three levels of the downtown building, while the city received the Maine Avenue land and buildings.