A long-vacant riverfront industrial property just upriver from Bucksport’s former paper mill site is getting some official attention that may be a sign someone wants to put it back to use.
Sprague International Properties recently applied to the state to transfer and modify a lease on submerged lands where a pier extends from the parcel into the Penobscot River, the first major sign of life there in years, according to a town official. It would reduce the lease footprint of the existing 50-by-50 foot pier.
“We haven’t seen anything like this,” community and economic development director Rich Rotella said of the submerged land application, adding it could mean a new pier may be built.
The former oil terminal north of the town center off River Road, known as Sprague North and called the “coal pocket” locally, was once a delivery port for coal and sulfur, then stored home heating fuels in large tanks until 1995. It has been vacant for decades and long eyed for various economic development projects. Its current sale listing was posted in July 2023.
The Sprague North property stands out as one of the few industrial parcels still available near the former Verso Paper mill, which closed in 2014. Most of the mill land itself is now owned by Whole Oceans, the company that promised to build a large land-based fish farm there by 2020 but has yet to break ground.
It’s not clear if the application to amend the submerged lands lease was submitted because a buyer had been found or who interested parties in the project are, Rotella said. Listing agent Thomas Dunham didn’t return a request for comment Wednesday.
Sprague Energy no longer owns the property, the company’s managing director of marketing Nick Skalla said Wednesday. The company’s former owner, Axel Johnson, kept the Bucksport property when Sprague was sold four years ago, according to Skalla, who said he had no knowledge of plans for the site.
The $500,000 listing highlights the 13.47-acre property’s proximity to the Whole Oceans site and Penobscot Bay, its deep water access and proximity to town power and water.
“The site is extremely functional and ready for the right industrial user,” according to the listing, which describes Bucksport as an “extremely pro-business town” actively seeking to create industrial employment.
Bucksport outlined industrial redevelopment opportunities on the mill site itself in a report completed last spring through the state’s community energy redevelopment program. Along with its main goal of growing the town’s commercial tax base, it saw opportunities for generating more energy from the former mill power plant, now owned by JERA Americas, according to the report.
Potential uses for sites along the river mentioned in the report included battery energy storage, an AI data center, maritime logistics and distribution or generating clean energy like solar, biofuel or hydrogen. No formal applications have been submitted.
Bucksport did apply for a grant last year to get a designation that could help it attract a biofuel plant, floating Sprague North as a potential location.
The site once had a catwalk and walkway, but now only the pier extending 50 feet into the Penobscot River remains, according to a public notice about the lease change request.
The property once included several oil tanks, a boiler house, a “spoils area” and a truck scale and office along River Road, according to documents attached to the notice. Its past uses left contamination, according to BDN archives, but by 2002 most had been cleaned up with plans to neutralize remaining sulfur in the soil.
That year, the town explored turning the property into a marine industrial park to attract small boatbuilders, the BDN reported at the time, hoping to create new jobs and link Bucksport to Sprague’s Mack Point terminal in Searsport. Several years before, plans were pitched to build a coal-fired generating plant there; in the early 1990s, it was proposed as a spot to take apart decommissioned warships.
Rail lines also run by River Road, which appealed to Sprague — partly as an option to connect to its Searsport operations — and was part of the reason it held on to the property, according to past BDN reporting. That railroad is now inactive, though Rotella recently said he sees an opportunity for it to be revived if enough diverse industry came back to Bucksport.
Sprague International Properties paid $5,683 in property taxes along River Road last year, according to town real estate commitment records.
