BELFAST - A series of deals struck this week has apparently cemented the future role of City Point Station as a shared hub for excursion train rides and a recreational rail trail.

Joe Feero, executive director of Brooks Preservation Society on Tuesday confirmed a purchase and sale agreement with Mack Page Sr. for the City Point Station property.

Brooks-based BPS has operated its excursion rail service out of City Point Station since May, and talk of a sale had been circulating for several months before last night's announcement at a City Council meeting.

Feero said the $207,000 sale price includes the roughly three-acre parcel on Oak Hill Road, the buildings, including the City Point Central Railroad Museum, and most of the rail cars on the property.

A related agreement between BPS and the city grants an easement for the city to build parking and install bathrooms on the property. The amenities would serve one end of a recreational trail proposed for construction along a two-mile stretch of the railroad corridor between City Point and Veterans Memorial Bridge, just outside of downtown.

The agreement requires the city to pay $37,400 for the easement and an additional $5,000 per year for 15 years. Feero described the annual payment as a "service fee." The total amount over 15 years, would be $112,400. The cost of most of the infrastructural work would be split between the city and BPS.

Under the agreement, the city would have the option to buy the property outright in the event that BPS defaulted on its monthly mortgage payments.

Additionally, the city would give a long-term lease to BPS to operate on the remaining 3,600 feet of track west of City Point Station, to the Waldo town line.

BPS holds lease agreements to operate on the remainder of the former Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad corridor, which extends another 30-plus miles to Burnham Junction. Feero said the current schedule of hour-long excursions typically takes riders about six miles west of City Point, into Waldo, and back. One of the goals, he said, is to extend the run to the organization's headquarters in Brooks.

The city played host to a number of excursion rail ventures, after the B&ML ceased freight service. Not all of these fit with the vision city officials had for the evolving waterfront. Perhaps as a result, proposals from BPS to bring trains into town were often greeted by city officials with a been-there-done-that ambivalence. The appearance of Front Street Shipyard and the development of the Harbor Walk dashed any hopes of bringing train into the old terminal area, and Penobscot McCrum's ownership of a segment of track just south of the Route 1 bridge has further kept the railroad out of town.

During the past two years BPS has based its trains at the old Upper Bridge crossing on High Street. The new location at City Point Station is a mile farther from downtown, but it comes with some benefits.

City officials have pitched the new location as one that will be mutually beneficial to rail and trail interests and maybe even synergistic, in the sense of visitors walking the trail, then visiting the rail museum and taking a train ride.

Feero said the deal gives BPS a long-term stable presence in Belfast that it hasn't had before, along with parking, storage and a location to hold events. But it also represents a compromise.

"Obviously our goal is to preserve the railroad," he said. "The city owns the railroad [corridor in Belfast] and they wanted to develop part of it, so this was the best option for us."

The city bought a 3.5-mile stretch of the old Belfast & Moosehead Lake rail corridor from Unity Foundation in 2010 with the intent of converting it to a pedestrian and biking trail. The idea evolved from an existing effort by the Camden-based conservancy Coastal Mountains Land Trust to connect a number of its holdings along the Passagassawakeag river under the banner of the "Passy Greenway."

[Editor's note: This article was updated at 4:30 p.m. July 3 and includes comments from CMLT Executive Director Scott Dickerson]

CMLT originally agreed to pay half of the $200,000 purchase price. Executive Director Scott Dickerson said Wednesday that the conservancy's support has always been contingent upon a secure legal right to build the trail, which has been tested at various points since the city bought the corridor in 2010.

The city has applied to the federal rail banking program, which would preserve the easement while allowing construction of the rail trail. CMLT and city are close to finalizing a memorandum of understanding that includes a provision for a joint capital campaign that Dickerson estimated could raise from $600,000 to $700,000 for the trail.

Dickerson said the initial promise of $100,000 still stands. He lamented, however, that the figure has become a focus of some observers who question why CMLT has yet to contribute. In fact, he said, CMLT's long-term contribution will likely be much larger.

"This isn't going to matter because ultimately it's going to proceed and people are going to see a trail built," he said. "These process things are going to disappear."

Speaking on Tuesday, City Manager Joe Slocum anticipated the fundraising drive would begin later this summer. The cost of turning the railroad into a trail would be partly offset by selling the steel rails, he said, leaving a balance of around a half million dollars.

"This is going to be an expensive thing," he said, "but we think there's going to be support for it in the community and in the region."

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Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.