March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Belfast to buy bank for police station

BELFAST — City councilors expressed second thoughts but ultimately approved the purchase of a former downtown bank for a new police station.

The council voted 4-1 to take $375,000 from surplus to buy the two-story building in Post Office Square from Bangor Savings Bank. The city has approximately $3 million in its surplus account.

Mayor Page Worth, who actively supported the recommendation to relocate the Police Department from City Hall to the former Fleet Bank, voiced surprise that the council had reservations about the proposal when it came time to vote.

Worth noted that the plan had received unanimous support in earlier council votes.

“I was worried for a while but they finally agreed it was the thing to do,” Worth said of Tuesday’s vote. “They had supported it all along and then I had to talk them into it.”

Councilor Jon Cheston cast the lone vote in opposition to the purchase.

City Clerk Roberta Avery said Cheston’s opposition had to do more with the process than the proposal. Avery said Cheston was concerned the project was not part of the city’s capital improvement program. The council is scheduled to hold a workshop on long-term capital improvements later this month.

The Police Department is housed in the basement of City Hall. A committee on city buildings determined last year that the department needed to be relocated in order to meet handicapped-access requirements and eliminate overcrowding.

The city has been awarded a $100,000 Community Development Block Grant to help cover the cost of an elevator and other access improvements. It received a grant to install an elevator in City Hall. That is just the beginning, however, as a recent architectural study found that up to $1 million may be needed to renovate and repair the 115-year-old building.

Besides reviewing the bank, the building committee also looked at locating a new police station on land adjacent to the Belfast Fire Department or adding to City Hall. An addition was deemed to costly, and using the land near the fire department for a new police station would have eliminated any future fire department expansion.

The bank building continues to have its critics. Most of the opposition centers on the estimated $400,000 in renovation costs and the removal of the building from the downtown commercial mix.

“They’re spending way too much money too quickly. Almost $1 million for a police department is ridiculous,” former City Councilor Alan Wood said before the vote. “They’re doing this basically because they are getting a $100,000 grant to build an elevator? I don’t get it.”

Police Chief Allen Weaver commended the council for its decision. Weaver said the bank building offered the city an unprecedented opportunity to deal with its police needs for the long term. He said the building was large enough to accommodate growth of the department or other city offices. He said the building has a second floor that would provide rental income to the city for years to come.

“I’m very happy with the council’s decision. I think it’s an excellent move,” Weaver said. “It will keep us centrally located in the downtown with easy access to the public. This gives the city an excellent opportunity to not only purchase a good facility, but to renovate it in such a manner to serve the city until long after we’ve all moved on.”

The bank is being used by the Belfast Free Library while it awaits completion of its $2.2 million expansion-renovation of its building on High Street.

That project is expected to be completed by early April.

City Manager Terry St. Peter said the council will take up the matter of renovating the bank for a police station within the next few weeks. He said the police hoped to be in their new headquarters by the end of the year.


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