Less than a month after the University of Maine System accepted a $1 million offer to sell the Hutchinson Center to an evangelical church, system officials are rescinding that decision and will reconsider how new proposals for the property will be solicited.
Possibilities include “issuing a new request for proposals, which would take into account both the real and potential value of all aspects of the proposals including those that relate to Networkmaine, or listing with a pre-qualified commercial broker,” UMaine System spokesperson Samantha Warren said in a Thursday press release.
Officials anticipate announcing how new offers for the sale or transfer of the Hutchinson Center will be solicited by Sept. 26.
The decision to rescind the offer comes after weeks of public uproar and dismay by Belfast citizens and unselected buyers alike who were disappointed with the buyer’s intended use for the Hutchinson Center, a former center for academics and community events. Calvary Church had intentions of using the center to introduce a Calvary-affiliated Christian school to Belfast.
Two rounds of appeals by the Committee for the Future of the Hutchinson Center and Waterfall Arts, both nonselected buyers, emphasized that their own intended uses of the building would be of great value and importance to the community. The Committee for the Future of the Hutchinson Center had intentions to restore the building to its former glory and included a clause in its offer to lease part of the building back to the University of Maine, if the school desired.
Without more focus on these issues, the groups argued, the selection process was “opaque” and “illogical.”
In the UMaine System’s first appeal response, Ryan Low, the vice chancellor for finance and administration, concluded that the process had been conducted fairly by UMaine with integrity and full transparency, and was entirely consistent with long-standing public procurement policies.
At the commencement and review of the second round of appeals by both nonselected buyers, however, Low agreed with the two groups’ assertion that the evaluation criteria did not adequately allow for the full financial impacts of proposals to be considered.
At its conception, the request for proposals process was unique, if mildly unconventional.
University properties are typically sold through a commercial broker or with the solicitation of purchase offers through a competitive request for proposal process.
To sell the Hutchinson Center, the System took a different approach. Community feedback suggested utilizing bidders to purchase, lease, or propose creative alternatives for the Hutchinson Center.
In the initial process, the Committee for the Future of the Hutchinson Center and Waterfall Arts had been the only buyer to offer a creative alternative bid, offered the lowest cost, and were the only option with direct intentions to maintain the building’s original purpose for what it once was.
“Because only the purchase price and not the longer-term financial benefit of that proposal could be considered based on the scoring criteria set at the start of the request for proposal process, the System concluded the criteria for evaluating so-called ‘alternative creative real property offers’ was materially deficient,” the press release states.
The original selection was based on a scoring system out of 100 possible points and on criteria of purchase price, earnest money and use of a Networkmaine internet hub inside the Hutchinson Center. The hub provides critical connectivity for midcoast institutions, including public schools and libraries.
The request for proposal noted that the internet hub would require relocation in the event of a sale, thereby driving up the cost of the sale of the building for this intended use, since it would potentially require a newly built home for the hub.
The Committee for the Future of the Hutchinson Center and Waterfall Arts, without intentions to move the hub, noted that this would cut costs by half, and therefore their earnest money offer was lower, which was reflected in their score — a total of 76 percent, the lowest of all bidders.