A parks and recreation facility that’s been years in the making has been set back significantly by the Bangor City Council, and it’s unclear what’s next for the building.
The City Council struck down a proposal Monday that would have asked voters to weigh in on the creation of a $68 million ice arena and recreation facility at the ballot box this fall.
The plans would have had the city build a new facility on Griffin Road with two ice sheets, a three-court gym, a suspended track, locker rooms, child care areas and two outdoor turf fields, according to a report from the committee. The project would also include a separate maintenance building for the parks and school departments.
It would have been one of the most expensive bonds put to Bangor voters in recent history, and councilors worried voters wouldn’t be able to stomach the price tag. But a new building is urgently needed to replace aging facilities.
The City Council’s decision throws a proposal that took three years to compile into limbo, as it’s now unclear what the future of the facility will be or what it will look like. The earliest a cheaper plan could likely go to voters would be a special election referendum in June.
“The need to replace both facilities hasn’t changed,” Parks and Recreation Director Tracy Willette said of the existing ice arena and recreation building after the Bangor City Council rejected the proposed ballot measure to fund the new facility.
His department is regrouping and figuring out how to move forward, he said.
The city commissioned a series of studies about its recreation facilities in 2022 and later formed a committee that evaluated and tweaked the recommendation that came out of those studies.
Renovations are not an option for the parks and recreation facility in the former Bangor Armory on Main Street and Sawyer Arena in Hayford Park on 13th Street because they are in such poor condition, a 2024 study found.
“Doing nothing isn’t free,” said former City Councilor Gretchen Schaefer, who chaired the committee that made the recommendation. “We have two aging decrepit facilities that are accessible in name only. They’re not welcoming, warm, inviting spaces. They’re overcrowded.”
Schaefer said she was disappointed by the council’s decision, especially given the time and money that went into hiring consultants to do a feasibility study.
“We spent over $100,000 to have experts say, ‘This is the best way forward,’ and so I’m disappointed that now they’re, I guess, asking to spend more money to try to get an answer that they like better,” she said.
The Griffin Road site, which is owned by the city, would replace both the existing parks and recreation facility and the ice arena. The most recent plans for the new facility, presented at a City Council workshop July 28, estimated the project would cost about $68.2 million — about $12 million more than an earlier estimate from February 2024.
Future additions, which would include pickleball and tennis courts and an adjacent health and human services building, would cost more money.
The price of the project would have been comparable to the 2011 cost to construct the Cross Insurance Center, for which voters approved a $65 million bond.
The project would have been funded by issuing a bond that would have to be approved by voters, but some city councilors expressed concerns about the cost of the project, saying they didn’t think taxpayers would agree to fund it.
“Does it make sense to go forward asking the people of Bangor to vote for a $68 million project?” Councilor Dan Tremble asked in a workshop meeting Monday. “And quite frankly, if we did, it wouldn’t pass in my opinion. So I think that’s, first of all, irresponsible of us to put something out that likely would not pass.”
The referendum would have had to go through two rounds of City Council approvals to make it on to the November ballot, including a vote at Monday’s meeting and another one at the end of the month.
Tremble initially said he would vote yes during the first round of votes but would need to see the price go down before he would vote a second time to approve the ballot measure — but he ultimately changed his mind to join councilors Michael Beck, Rick Fournier and Wayne Mallar in voting no, defeating the measure 4-4.
“It just seemed very rushed to me that we had to make a decision this month to get on the November ballot,” Tremble told the Bangor Daily News on Wednesday, adding that he thinks a cheaper ballot measure in June would be more successful.
“I think if we had gone forward with the $70 million project that it would have failed, and then we would have had to wait a couple more years to go out again and get something that voters would approve,” he said. “We’ve gotta get to a figure that people are comfortable with.”
Tremble said he doesn’t think another study would be necessary, and that the city manager and finance committee could reexamine the plans and find a lower cost to ask voters to fund.
Some parts of the committee’s proposal — including a fitness center, indoor playground and teen center — had already been removed from the plans after some councilors balked at the high price tag in a July 28 City Council workshop.
These cuts could have reduced the cost of the project, according to Willette, although he didn’t have updated numbers to share Monday. Had the council voted to advance the proposal, it would have discussed more details of the cost at a finance committee meeting next week before voting a second time before the deadline for ballot questions.
“They didn’t even pass it for first reading to allow it to go to finance to hammer out the numbers, which is particularly disappointing,” Schaefer said.
She guessed that the only remaining part of the project that could be cut to save a significant amount of money would be the second ice rink.
“But I also don’t know that the savings of that would be beneficial in the long run because we would still be limited to one sheet of ice,” she said, referring to the potential revenue opportunities from hosting hockey tournaments or clinics with two rinks.
“It’s disappointing in that it could have been an economic engine,” Schaefer said.
