One of two new turns on town properties in one day

Mon, 01/30/2017 - 4:45pm

SUSAN JOHNS

The former Wiscasset Primary School on Gardiner Road, photographed hours before the sale Jan. 30. PHIL DI VECE/Wiscasset Newspaper

Sherri Dunbar of Tim Dunham Realty receives the check for the former Wiscasset Primary School Jan. 26 from JSJ Holdings LLC President Steve Barndollar. Courtesy photo

The former Wiscasset Primary School on Gardiner Road, photographed hours before the sale Jan. 30. PHIL DI VECE/Wiscasset Newspaper

Sherri Dunbar of Tim Dunham Realty receives the check for the former Wiscasset Primary School Jan. 26 from JSJ Holdings LLC President Steve Barndollar. Courtesy photo

JSJ Holdings LLC bought the former Wiscasset Primary School property Monday afternoon for $505,000, the town’s real estate agent on the property, Sherri Dunbar of Tim Dunham Realty said.

The LLC has four shareholders including Jon Williams of Atlantic Red Crab Company, Dunbar confirmed in a phone interview after the closing in Brunswick. All the shareholders have fishing backgrounds but the plans for the property are not fishing-related, Dunbar said. They will mostly likely convert it into housing, she said. She did not have further details.

Dunbar added Williams has homes in Westport Island and in Virginia. The LLC’s other three shareholders are Steve Barndollar of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, president; John Walsh of Seattle, Washington; and Bruce Medeiros of New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dunbar wrote in a subsequent email.

Selectmen’s latest asking price for the property had been $525,000. The school closed in 2015 when Wiscasset consolidated from three schools to two.

Reached Monday night, Les and Merry Fossel, co-presidents of the Morris Farm next door to the property, said they were glad for the town for selling the property, and that they look forward to meeting and having a good relationship with the new owners.

In a phone interview Monday evening, Town Manager Marian Anderson said that to the best of her knowledge, the property will be taxable under the new ownership and could bring jobs to town.

Also Monday evening, Anderson issued a press release stating the cash to the town after all the costs from the sale is $ 464,425. The release gives JSJ Holdings’ address as One Canal Plaza in Portland.

In the release, selectmen thank Dunbar for her hard work negotiating the sale.

“The board looks forward to working with the new owner to develop the property in accordance with the town’s land use ordinance. Board members Judy Colby, Jeff Slack, Ben Rines and David Cherry are thrilled and looking forward to the future new jobs and continued economic development in the Wiscasset community,” the release reads. It quotes Slack as commenting, “Simply wonderful.”

The school’s sale was not Wiscasset’s only breaking news on the real estate front Monday. Following an executive session, selectmen accepted an $ 18,000 offer from David Stapp, ‎CEO/CTO at Peregrine Turbine Technologies LLC on the former Central Maine Power, brick garage measuring 41 by 101 feet, at the former Mason Station site, according to the same release. Acceptance of the offer is contingent on planning board approval, the release states. The structure sits on less than an acre of land, Anderson said.

In an email response Tuesday to a question from the Wiscasset Newspaper, Stapp states the building will be used for prototype assembly and testing of Peregrine’s proprietary turbine engine.