City amends deal with Affiliated Healthcare

BANGOR – City councilors authorized changes Monday night to the city’s development agreement with Affiliated Healthcare Management, a for-profit branch of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems.

Affiliated Healthcare recently completed the Douglas H. Brown Building, a $3 million, 28,000-square-foot office and operations facility on the front portion of the former Army Reserve Center property at 931 Union St., a 7-acre parcel it is leasing from the city. The new building houses Affiliated Healthcare and Meridian Mobile Health-Capital Ambulance.

Now Affiliated is getting ready to develop a 56,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center for hospital supplies, either through new construction or acquiring and renovating an existing building.

Though the original agreement required Affiliated to develop the rear portion of the property, located near the EMHS Healthcare Mall on Union Street, city officials have agreed to release Affiliated from that requirement – but only if the proposed center is developed within city limits.

Under the amended terms, Affiliated must begin construction or renovations no later than April 1, 2008.

In other business, the councilors:

. Granted Club Gemini owners Matthew and Patrick Brann a special amusement permit. The vote followed Deputy Police Chief Peter Arno’s report on the nightclub owners’ efforts to address noise complaints from neighbors. In the past year, he said, the city was called to the establishment 87 times, which Arno said was not out of line for an establishment of its kind. Eight of those incidents were noise-related.

. Authorized an amended lease agreement and agreed to defer for five years payments on a $37,500 loan for the Maine Aviation Historical Society, which operates an air museum in a city-owned building near Bangor International Airport.

. Awarded a $523,161 contract for a wireless broadband mobile data system for the city’s public safety operations. The system, which will be purchased from RITEC Enterprises of Rochester, N.Y., will be paid for with federal Homeland Security funds.

. Approved a grant agreement with the Maine Department of Transportation for a $100,000 Boating Infrastructure Grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The money will be used to extend the city’s heavy vessel dock so that it can better serve boats more than 26 feet in length. Community Development Block Grant funds will be used for the $33,333 local match.

. Accepted a $64,000 Homeless Continuum of Care grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The grant will allow the city to add 11 more housing units to its Shelter Plus Care project, which supports the needs of people with serious mental illness, chronic substance abuse problems and HIV.