More than 20 buckets were placed throughout the hallways of the Bangor Mall on Thursday, less than a day after mall ownership said that it had “successfully completed all necessary repairs” of the building’s leaking ceiling.
Namdar Realty Group sent a statement to the Bangor Daily News on Wednesday that said, in part, that all roof leaks “have been addressed” and that damaged ceiling tiles are being replaced.
But the city of Bangor disputes Namdar’s assertion that the repairs are complete.
The city’s Code Department photographed leaks inside the Bangor Mall on Wednesday, according to a statement provided Thursday by city spokesperson David Warren. A mall manager told the city this week that the internal roof repairs had not been completed, the statement added.
Buckets were placed under missing or water-damaged ceiling tiles when a Bangor Daily News reporter and photographer visited the mall Thursday morning. Some ceiling tiles had been replaced, but water stains were visible on both old and new tiles.
Sections of the mall’s hallways were blocked off with wet floor signs, often accompanied by buckets. One location, in front of Goldthwait Vision Care, was blocked off with benches and a wet floor sign while more than 10 buckets were placed under leaks.
This is a new leak, this time through the skylight, a Namdar spokesperson said Thursday afternoon when asked about the buckets inside the mall. Roofers tried to repair it for eight hours on Wednesday, but the snow made it difficult to address.
The skylight is in a different area of the mall than Goldthwait Vision Care.
The dispute between Namdar and Bangor over the status of these repairs marks the latest escalation between the two parties as they wait for a judge to decide if the mall owner should pay the city $2 million in fines. The statement from Namdar is particularly unusual as parties in active litigation typically do not comment outside of court until the case ends.
The city has two active lawsuits against the mall alleging code violations of a leaking roof, large potholes, a dilapidated sign and that the owner failed to fix a broken sewer pipe. In August, a sinkhole opened around a 54-inch stormwater pipe, causing a break in a 10-inch sewer line and 18-inch stormwater pipe. Sewage flowed out of a broken pipe on mall property into the Penjajawoc Stream, which the city repaired.
That rupture was “due in large part to the lack of preventative maintenance measures prior to Namdar Realty Group’s purchase of the property,” the New York-based company said. The mall’s previous owner neglected the infrastructure, which allowed the stormwater to seep from pipes and erode the soil, which led to the sinkhole, Namdar said.
Namdar used robotic cameras to locate failures in the stormwater system and found a “significant portion” of it is beyond the company’s property line, meaning it’s the city’s responsibility, the statement said.
In response, the city said the lines cross private roads owned by Namdar and no sinkholes or other sewer line issues have happened under public roads near the mall. Bangor has not seen the camera footage.
No sinkholes have developed in the public road or in the driveways of the Bangor Mall, the city said. The sinkhole that caused the sewer line break was on the former Books-A-Million property, in an easement owned by Namdar.
Maintenance of private stormwater lines are the responsibility of the property owner, the city said.
“Namdar is incorrect in its implication that any of the maintenance or repair of the stormwater or sewer lines are the City’s responsibility,” the city said.
“Namdar is similarly incorrect in accusing the City of ‘advantageously mischaracterizing’ the responsibility for the segment of drainage system which caused the damages in this matter,” the city’s statement continued. “It is Namdar which is mischaracterizing the location of the drainage system responsible for the large majority of the damages in this matter.”
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Bangor’s city code requires an annual inspection of the stormwater drainage system and for property owners to file a copy of the report with the city. The previous owner did not file reports and the city did not enforce it, Namdar said. The company hadn’t been required to file reports during its first five years of ownership as well.
The city has twice asked Namdar for the reports, it said.
Namdar also said that company representatives and a redevelopment partner flew into Bangor last week to discuss turning the property into housing, commercial office spaces and other uses with city officials.
The city said it met with Namdar representatives on Feb. 13.
Letters are still missing from the Bangor Mall sign on Hogan Road. A Namdar representative testified Jan. 10 that a contractor was hired and paid to fix the sign the next week.
Additionally, the former Sears store, which closed in 2018, is now disconnected from power due to leaking, the city said, rendering the sprinkler system not operational.
