Lincoln gives initial OK for town office move

LINCOLN – The Town Office will move to a proposed housing facility at the former Lake Mall site in June 2010 pending a lease agreement with a Bangor social service agency, town officials said.

The Town Council voted 6-0 during a special meeting on Monday to agree to move the Town Office from 63 Main St. if Penquis, the social service agency creating the building, develops a lease that the town likes, Chairman Steve Clay said.

“If we don’t like the [lease] deal, we can back out and not be held legally responsible,” Clay said late Monday. “They just needed to know if we are interested at all [in order] to apply for the financing and the grant to build the building.

“We needed a lot more information, and we received enough of that information to feel comfortable to say yes at this point,” Clay added, “but it all depends on the final lease agreement.”

The proposed 15,000-square-foot building at Main Street and West Broadway would contain 24 senior citizen apartments, a retail space and possibly a new Town Office all worth as much as $6 million. If all goes well, construction will begin in spring 2009 and finish a year later, Penquis officials have said.

Penquis is designing the town’s portion of the building and formulating a tentative lease agreement. It will be applying in November for Maine Housing Authority aid to build the structure, said Stephen Mooers, Penquis’ director of housing services.

The council needs a signed lease agreement with Penquis by June 2009 in order to end its lease agreement with the local Masons chapter in June 2010 without incurring heavy extra fees, Clay said.

The town will have the option of assuming ownership of the building once Penquis pays back the construction costs, Mooers said Tuesday.

If Penquis succeeds in building the complex, it will have rehabilitated the last of about eight properties devastated by arson fires in 2002. The fires destroyed eight of 32 Main Street businesses. No one was charged in the arson.

nsambides@bangordailynews.net

794-8215