In a Sept. 26 news release, the University of Maine said it will issue next week a new competitive request for proposals to purchase the Hutchinson Center in Belfast.

This follows a series of appeals after UMaine awarded its preference for entering real estate negotiations with Calvary Chapel Belfast in August.

Earlier this month, the university rescinded its August decision after determining during a formal appeal process that there had been a deficiency in the original RFP’s evaluation criteria. 

The new RFP will be posted here by noon on Friday, Oct. 4. and close at 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 1.

All interested parties – including the three Waldo County organizations who responded to the initial RFP – will have the same equal opportunity to submit offers responsive to the new solicitation by that deadline, UMaine said.

In August 2023,  UMaine closed its Belfast satellite campus in a move to divest of property holdings across the state  it considered unused or underutilized..

The Hutchinson Center had, for the prior 23 years, served as a higher-level educational campus for the Midcoast. It was first built by credit company MBNA, Corp., which was a major employer in the Midcoast from 1994-2005, for its corporate purposes. After the Bank of America acquired MBNA, that company gave the Hutchinson Center to UMaine in 2007.

In January 2024, UMaine circulated a request for proposals for the Hutchinson Center and on Aug. 14, UMaine announced that it had chosen Calvary Hope Belfast, an evangelical church currently based on Route 52 in Belfast, from a pool of three proposals. The other two proposals were from Waldo Community Action Partners (WCAP) of Belfast, and FHC-WA.

The 11.6-acre campus includes a 16,675-square-foot facility constructed in 2000 and a 13,841-square-foot wing built in 2007. The property has been appraised at  $2.52 million. 

UMaine issued a news release Aug. 22, saying it would hold firm to its decision to sell the campus to Calvary Hope Belfast church. UMaine maintained that its selection process was consistent with it public procurement standards.

“Recent sales have also enabled university assets to be repurposed for community benefit or be returned to the tax rolls to generate needed revenue for municipalities,” UMaine had said, in July.

UMaine said it the appeals from FHC-WA and Waldo Cap were: “thoroughly reviewed but did not present evidence to warrant a revision to the original result. Only parties who submitted a non-selected proposal had standing to protest.”

But after another appeal was filed by FHC-WA, UMaine reversed its decision.

In a letter sent to Hugh Townsend, Co-Chair of the Future of the Hutchinson Center Steering Committee, the University of Maine Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration and Treasurer, Ryan Lowe, said the decision by UMaine to sell the Hutchinson Center campus in Belfast to the Calvary Chapel Belfast has been rescinded.

“I will be directing the System’s Office of Strategic Procurement to work with UMaine to determine their desired next steps for soliciting offers to purchase or facilitate the transfer of the property, whether by facilitating a new RFP process, which would appropriately take into account both the real and potential value of all aspects of the proposals including those that related to Networkmaine, or listing with a pre-qualified commercial broker,” write Lowe, in his September 12 letter to the FHCSC Steering Committee.