A day after a Belfast church sued the University of Maine System for accepting and then rescinding its offer to buy the local Hutchinson Center, it has now filed a separate challenge outside the court system of the recent decision to sell the facility to another bidder.
On Wednesday, Calvary Chapel Belfast filed a formal appeal of the UMaine System’s decision late last week to sell the Hutchinson Center to Waldo Community Action Partners, which will put the sale on hold until the appeal is resolved, according to Samantha Warren, a spokesperson for the system.
That came one day after the evangelical church filed a lawsuit alleging that the UMaine System had discriminated against it on religious grounds by rescinding the original decision to sell the Hutchinson Center to it. It accused the system of caving to public pressure to not sell the shuttered educational facility to a religious group.
The UMaine System has said it “strongly disagrees” with those allegations. It previously said it was rescinding the sale of the center to Calvary Chapel Belfast because it discovered that the criteria for evaluating the first round of proposals didn’t consider the costs for the system to lease back space at the Hutchinson Center for a network access hub that’s there.
The three groups that made proposals to buy the Hutchinson Center in both rounds of bidding were Waldo CAP, Calvary Chapel Belfast and a partnership of the Future of the Hutchinson Center Steering Committee and Waterfall Arts. The last group congratulated Waldo CAP on being selected as the buyer and has not filed an appeal.
In the latest round of bidding, Waldo CAP offered to pay $3.06 million for the Hutchinson Center, while Calvary Chapel Belfast offered $1.1 million and the partnership offered $1.8 million.
As part of its lawsuit, Calvary Chapel Belfast is also seeking a temporary restraining order to block the sale.
Church officials declined to comment on their challenges of the sale. They are being represented by Liberty Counsel, a group that takes up cases across the country of what it says is religious discrimination.
