Councilor: Arts center a ‘charade’ Stalled Millinocket project under fire for potential of tax burden

MILLINOCKET – Saying the 20-month effort to create a downtown arts, culture and retail center in the former J.J. Newberry department store is a “charade,” Town Councilor Scott Gonya wants the building razed.

With support from Councilors Jimmy Busque and David Cyr, Gonya pushed Thursday night for the town to seize the building by eminent domain and turn it into a park or parking lot, calling 225 Penobscot Ave. a safety hazard.

“To me, it’s going to cost taxpayers if this charade goes on and on,” Gonya said during the meeting.

“I am not against economic development,” Gonya added, “but I see that [cultural center] as not being viable. It cannot support itself.”

“I believe that the business plan for this building was built to fail,” Cyr said. “We should cut our losses and get out today and get out cheap.”

“I don’t think it’s a viable business,” Busque said. “They were in our taxpayers’ pocket once [with the council appropriation], and they are looking to go in the other pocket [with the proposed grant]. I disagree with that.

“If it was a viable project, they would have gotten their money from a financial institution,” Busque added.

Organizer Guilds Hollowell, Town Manager Eugene Conlogue and Councilors Bruce McLean and Matthew Polstein defended the center efforts.

Hollowell cited about 30 organizations in the Katahdin region that support the project, including the towns of East Millinocket and Medway, and said fundraising efforts are in progress.

McLean said the project had a strong business plan. Conlogue said the building is structurally sound, and Polstein called it unfair to target it for demolition with other downtown structures in apparently poor shape.

“I think it’s obscene to be calling it a sham, and it’s a shame to be trying to take the building away from them,” McLean said. “We should be supporting this project because a large number of citizens in and outside this community are supporting it. We ought to be investing in our future.”

With Councilor Wallace Paul absent, Chairman David Nelson deferred action on Gonya’s idea until the next council meeting in two weeks. Hollowell and other center supporters are expected to make a presentation then.

The words of Busque, Cyr and Gonya were the strongest and most concerted criticisms yet of a project launched with much enthusiasm in June 2005 that seems to have languished since then.

Hollowell planned a downtown arts, culture and retail center worth as much as $750,000 in the former J.J. Newberry department store by Thanksgiving 2005 when he announced his center plans. Similar self-imposed deadlines of September and December 2006 also have lapsed.

Hollowell said that he had begun working with the Millinocket Area Growth and Investment Council, the economic development organization where McLean serves as executive director, and bought the building at 225 Penobscot Ave. for an undisclosed price in late May 2005.

Building plans call for a lobby, small food concession area, 1,500-square-foot retail shop, 165-seat adaptable movie and stage theater, and open floor space where arts and museum works can be displayed.

Town officials were hopeful that the project would erase a long-standing eyesore in the heart of downtown, but became impatient when about $160,000 was spent with no outwardly visible improvement to the building.

Aside from a mural painted by Millinocket and East Millinocket students late last year and placed in front display windows by center volunteers, no work has been done there since summer 2005.

Some within Millinocket believe that the cultural center plan is the leading edge of an environmentalist-based economic movement bent on turning the region into a depopulated tourist trap. Others question the project because some aspects replicate features found in Millinocket’s schools or typical private businesses.

Gonya advised against more taxpayer dollars funding the center, including a recently proposed $150,000 state grant sponsored by Rep. Herbie Clark, D-Millinocket, that might have spurred his recent interest in the project.

He called the council’s $30,000 appropriation to the project in 2005 an embarrassing mistake.

“About six or seven years ago I wanted to get rid of that building, and I still want to get rid of it,” Gonya said. “I would bulldoze that building tomorrow.”

Yet Code Enforcement Officer Michael Noble’s inspections show the building to be structurally sound, thanks to extensive gutting, Conlogue said.

“It’s not in imminent danger of collapsing. It does need significant work, but it is a very well-built building,” Conlogue said.

Hollowell said fundraising efforts are continuing, but that it’s difficult to lure investors into the Katahdin region.

Some councilors’ patience with that reasoning might be waning. Nelson said he would favor a radical solution if the project stalls, while Polstein said he would not favor more council appropriations to do it, although he counseled patience.