Penn National buys site for permanent complex

BANGOR – All a Pennsylvania-based gaming and racing firm needs to begin construction of its $90 million complex on Main Street is a wrecking ball.

The owners of the Holiday Inn-Civic Center closed on the sale of the 31-year-old hotel Thursday to Penn National Gaming Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

Demolition of the 121-room hotel and adjacent buildings is scheduled to begin in February, Hollywood Slots spokeswoman Amy Kenney said Thursday.

Construction is expected to begin in April with the complex slated to open in mid-2008.

The Holiday Inn-Civic Center closed its doors on Halloween in anticipation of the sale.

“This has been a very long process,” Drew Anderson, the Portland attorney who represents the owners of the Holiday Inn, said Thursday. “We’re happy the deal has gone through as everyone had anticipated.”

The hotel is one of two that Penn National has been working to acquire as part of its effort to build its gaming complex across Main Street from Bass Park.

The other hotel, the former Main Street Inn, was razed in June.

Penn National’s permanent racino will replace its temporary facility, Hollywood Slots in Bangor, which opened in November 2005 in the former Miller’s Restaurant on Main Street.

The two hotel properties, across the street from Bass Park and Bangor Raceway, are among the few commercially zoned properties large enough to accommodate Penn’s permanent facility within the 2,000-foot radius of Bangor Raceway required by state law.

It will house, among other things, a 116,000-square-foot gaming facility featuring up to 1,500 slots, a 1,500-space four-story parking garage, and restaurant and retail space.

The Holiday Inn-Civic Center opened in February 1974 as a Sheraton Inn through its original owners, Bangor-area businessmen Thomas Walsh and Forrest Grant. It became a Holiday Inn in early 1975, when Bangor businessman Larry Mahaney acquired an interest.

Mahaney, an Easton native who also owned the Holiday Inn on the Odlin Road, died in February at age 76 in West Palm Beach, Fla., after suffering a stroke.

His son, Kevin Mahaney, is now president and chief executive officer of The Olympia Cos., based in Portland. A subsidiary, Olympia Hotel Management, operates 12 independent hotel and spa properties in Maine, Virginia and New Hampshire, according to its corporate Web site.

Built at a cost of $750,000, the Holiday Inn was valued when it closed at nearly $1.25 million by the city’s tax assessor.

Over the years, the inn was expanded from its original 60 guestrooms to 121.