The city of Belfast has made plans to deal with two contaminated downtown buildings it owns in the coming months.
The city received $2 million through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields program earlier this year to clean up the former Waldo County Superior Courthouse and a dilapidated building at 74 High St. known as Bradbury Manor so they can be reused.
The consulting firm hired by the city, TRC, released its recommendations this month and presented them to the public at a meeting on Thursday. It’s proposing to demolish and abate the manor site while containing contaminated soil, and to abate materials at the former courthouse during the renovation process along with capping soil.
An additional $500,000 from the EPA is set aside for the city to evaluate 10 more properties, including formerly industrial parcels near its waterfront.
The recommendations are another step forward for plans with the two buildings after years of work amid larger downtown redevelopment, and part of a more than decadelong effort to evaluate dozens of similar sites around the city through five previous federal grants.
Public comment is open on both proposals until Nov. 10. Unless significant issues are raised during that process, the projects will likely move ahead as proposed, Peter Sherr, a representative of TRC, said Thursday. The firm is managing the work and studies for the city.
Brownfields are properties that can be challenging to redevelop because of potential hazardous materials or contamination onsite, according to the EPA. Grants through the program are viewed as economic development tools that can help such sites be reused after assessments and, if necessary, cleanups.
In Belfast, many of the small sites assessed in the past 15 years were old gas stations or buildings made with dangerous materials such as lead paint or asbestos tiles, according to Thomas Kittredge, its economic development director. The industrial history of its waterfront is also reflected; the latest grant will also let the city assess the site of former potato processing and an industrial freezer facility.
Bradbury Manor, a hospital turned nursing home that’s been abandoned for 30 years, was built with hazardous materials including asbestos and lead paint, according to the assessments. It also sits on contaminated soil and has become dangerous as it deteriorates, leading the city to condemn it and seize it by eminent domain last year in order to apply for the Brownfields grant.
The city separately has a voluntary fund for private property owners who want assessments.
After evaluating several options, TRC recommended demolishing the former Bradbury Manor building while abating the hazardous materials inside and covering contaminated soil onsite. At the end of the process, which is expected to take 4 to 8 weeks, the site would be covered and seeded with grass to prepare it for residential development.
While the city hasn’t discussed plans for the site yet, it would likely be residential if redeveloped, staff said Thursday. Belfast doesn’t expect to create housing itself, but it could put out a targeted request for proposals to build there in an effort to increase housing stock.
Deputy Economic Development Director Joellyn Warren said the city has specific interest in housing for the “missing middle,” people who can’t afford market rates but make too much to qualify for subsidized affordable housing.
Cleanup work could start in the spring of 2026, but a continuing government shutdown would delay EPA approval of the final contract, Sherr said. In that case, the city and consultants may revisit the timeline to avoid disrupting the summer tourism season for neighboring businesses.
The former Waldo County Superior Courthouse, meanwhile, will likely have its hazardous building materials partly abated as part of the renovation process and exterior soil contamination capped with a parking lot, sidewalk or clean fill. Maine cities with a history of fires filled in building spots with soil that included these materials, according to Sherr.
Abating it this way would be as effective as fully removing the material and soil, according to the consultant’s report, and will make financial and logistical sense with the town’s plans to renovate the former courthouse into an expansion of City Hall. The city purchased it for that purpose; work will likely begin in 2026, but would take longer than the Manor project because it has to coordinate with renovation plans.
Thursday’s meeting had fewer than 10 outside attendees, mostly neighbors of Bradbury Manor, who questioned how contaminants would be contained during the process and asked about noise along with other disruptions. Erosion and dust control will be built into the project, Sherr said in response.
