The owner of a Caribou shopping plaza where neglected repairs to a broker sprinkler system have put a half dozen businesses at risk of being forced out said Thursday that he was not aware of any violations in the property and called the situation “bogus bulls***.”
Dana Cassidy, a local developer who owns numerous commercial properties throughout Maine, said he had not received the two violation notices sent by the city of Caribou over the last month. He said he was unaware of a vacate order issued to the building’s tenants that could take effect as soon as the end of the week if repairs are not scheduled.
“I’m foreign to this. I’m the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on,” Cassidy said. “I haven’t received any notice from anyone. I’m not hard to get a hold of.”
The issues stem from a mid-March inspection of the sprinkler system at the 118 Bennett Drive plaza that found it was nonfunctional in one-third of the building.
The city took action in April following a complaint about the building and, after Cassidy did not respond to its notices, issued a vacate order to the six businesses that operate at the property.
That order, which had an effective date of Thursday, has not yet been enforced as the city explores paying for the repairs itself and recouping the cost through a special tax lien.
But citing problems with the building, some tenants have publicly announced that they will move regardless.
“I’ve got two tenants looking for spaces and if they leave. I’m going to sue someone,” Cassidy said.
He did not elaborate on who he would sue. Cassidy and Caribou have sparred for years over unpaid taxes and other issues with his properties. Last November, the city foreclosed on a vacant 27,000-square-foot former call center he owned in Caribou’s downtown after a yearslong fight over the valuation of the property that reached the Maine Supreme Court.
“I’ve given millions and millions and millions of dollars, one of the highest taxpayers in the city,” Cassidy said. “They’ve always got their money.”
Cassidy owes more than $59,000 in unpaid taxes on the 118 Bennett Drive property going back two years, according to tax records on file with the city.
Tim St. Peter, the city’s newly appointed code enforcement officer, said in an email that both violation notices regarding the sprinkler system were sent to Cassidy’s listed address on tax records, which is a post office box, and that neither have been returned.
A March 18 semi-annual inspection report filed by Eastern Fire and obtained by the Bangor Daily News through a Freedom of Access Act Request flagged seven deficiencies in the system and gave it a “red tag” designation, signifying an emergency bulletin requiring immediate corrective action.
The nonfunctional section of the system is in an unoccupied portion of the building. A sectional valve to that area was shut off after pipes froze and caused a sprinkler head to break, the report notes. All current tenants have functional sprinklers, but the deficiencies still present a fire hazard.
“Without the full system in operation, a fire could grow too large for the sprinkler system to be effective by the time it reached a protected space,” St. Peter told the Caribou City Council on Monday.
The vacate order would be nullified if repairs were scheduled, St. Peter said. Cassidy said that he believed the repairs had been scheduled with Eastern Fire, but did not know for when. The fire protection company did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
“There’s no problem with that building. It’s a $3.43 coupling,” Cassidy said. “And I mean, if they need it that bad, I’ll run over and put it in, but I’m not licensed to do it. It’s a 20-minute job.”
The building’s occupants include a martial arts gym, an insurance agency, a bakery, a physical therapy practice and a Northern Light Health primary and walk-in care clinic.
