Call it historic or call it enduring, a downtown Belfast building hits market
Courtesy / Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northeast Real Estate
The three-story, 7,800-square-foot building is at 126 Church St. in Belfast is zoned for retail, office and residential use.
An enduring downtown Belfast building is for sale — making it one of the few vacant properties available to buy in a town that’s been booming in recent years.
The three-story, 7,800-square-foot building is at 126 Church St. and is zoned for retail, office and residential use.
The asking price is $320,000, said the listing broker, Joe Calista of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northeast Real Estate.
It is one of few wooden buildings erected after a catastrophic fire destroyed most of the downtown area in 1865. Dating to 1890, it has seen a variety of uses.
“There was a company that made padlocks at one time,” said Calista. “There was a clothing manufacturer, and a print shop for many years. The most recent history that everyone knows is Em Bee Dry Cleaners.”
The building has been vacant for at least six years. The current owners, going by the name 126 Church Street LLC, are part-owners of GEO Environmental Remediation Co., a California company that also owns a large industrial building in the Belfast Airport Industrial Park, said Calista. (That building is up for sale as well.) The current owners bought 126 Church in 2010, after the last family member involved with the dry cleaners decided to close the operation.
“The current owners had great plans to renovate,” Calista said. “They gutted it out to the studs and had plans to create retail space downstairs and apartments upstairs. But their other business got too busy, and they realized they wouldn’t complete the project. That’s when they started talking to me about putting it on the market. It’s unique because now somebody has a blank slate to create what they want to create.”
After just 10 days on the market, Calista had already heard from several people, out-of-state and local, interested in viewing the property.
“It’s in the center of Belfast, across the street from City Hall and the courthouse. So it’s a good location,” he said. “It would be a great project for someone who has a vision for their business. It probably would work best as a mixed-use building, with retail or offices on the first floor, and offices or apartments on the second floor, and definitely an apartment or two on the third floor.”
The building’s potential comes at a great time from both the commercial and residential standpoint, Calista said.
“There are a lot of things happening in Belfast,” he said. “It’s got a thriving downtown now, and shop space and storefronts have been taken, for the most part. Other buildings in town, especially in the last year, have changed hands for good money, so property values and rents are increasing. And Belfast in general has really come to life in the last few years.”
Belfast has seen growth with the addition of Front Street Shipyard, which has created jobs and brought in yachts for repair, as well as new restaurants, shops and galleries, as reported by James McCarthy in Mainebiz.
“That’s a good blend,” Calista said. “I think that brings attention to this property, because it’s the last building that hasn’t been touched.”
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