LINCOLN – The town will resume ownership next week of the former Lake Mall property destroyed by arson in 2002 and put it back on the market soon thereafter, Town Manager Glenn Aho said Wednesday.

Town officials and Paradigm Development of Bangor, which bought the former Lake Mall property for an undisclosed price in the latter half of last year, will sign transfer paperwork next week, Aho said.

“We are beyond a conversation. Now we have documents drawn up,” Aho said Wednesday.

Paradigm owner Alex Tessman blamed the restructuring on the state delaying payments for health care providers with which it contracts for services, which he said was driving his firm to insolvency.

Tessman had hoped to build a combined retail and office space on the Lake Mall property.

“It would have been great to have construction there this summer, but I am willing to make the best of the situation and I am eager to sell the property again and start over,” Aho said.

The latest transaction will cost the town nothing, Aho said, and the town will keep the approximately $8,300 Tessman’s company had paid the town for the property.

Some town officials had expressed frustration at not hearing much from Paradigm since it acquired the property, near Rite-Aid and the town gazebo near Mattanawcook Lake and West Broadway, which some consider a prime piece of downtown real estate.

The property has several thousand vehicles pass by it per day, Aho said.

Given recent town economic successes, and the town’s lack of small retail and commercial office space, Aho said he believes the property would sell quickly.

An arsonist destroyed the Lake Mall property near Kneeland Avenue and Ballantyne Court in January 2002 in one of two arson fires that devastated the downtown that month.