Developer with an eye for 'fixer-uppers' finds a Skowhegan plaza
Courtesy / Dana Cassidy
The Skowhegan Village Plaza at 338 Madison Ave. has been acquired by Dana Cassidy, who owns 52 properties in Maine, including hotels and shopping centers.
Photo / Laurie Schreiber
Dana Cassidy, a real estate developer, fixes up retail properties and collects classic cars, like those pictured at the Colonial Inn in Ellsworth.
SKOWHEGAN — Real estate developer Dana Cassidy has immediately launched into improvements for the forlorn Skowhegan Village Plaza, a retail center at 338 Madison Ave. that he purchased in August.
Cassidy was represented by broker Fred Noyes of the Acadia Realty Group. The seller, Massachusetts-based Mexico Realty Trust, was represented by Robert Baldacci and Tony Armstrong of Baldacci Real Estate Group.
The plaza, built in 1967 with 79,174 square feet of space on 21 acres, is home to a Pizza Hut, Subway, Spice of Life Whole Foods, Napa Auto Parts, Family Pet Connection, Beauty By Design Tanning & Hair Salon and Burger King. It has 340 parking spaces. About a quarter of the retail space is vacant. The property has a list of deferred maintenance projects and, as such, is exactly the type of property Cassidy looks for — fixer-uppers.
“I buy them, fix them up, work on them, whatever it takes,” he said. “When I go in it’s normally a junker no one else wanted. Might take me two, three years. This one, I got programmed for 30, 36 months. Now, will I spend a lot of money? Absolutely. But there are things I do, myself and my crews, so I can keep the costs down, and I do it over time. Flooring, painting, roofing, landscaping, lighting — I do that myself.”
Custom fit-out for tenants
Cassidy also customizes the space for prospective tenants, and will do it in phases that are affordable for the tenant.
“Someone comes in and they want a certain size space and they have a blueprint of what they want,” he said. “You get a contractor in there and the contractor says, ‘I need $235,000 to build it.’ And I say to the potential tenant or lessee, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll use my money, I’ll put this part together in the front for you to get you started, see how you do. I’ll keep the price down here while you’re a fledgling business.’ So I basically will jumpstart the business.”
Cassidy got his start in the business four decades ago, in his hometown of Presque Isle. There, and then in Caribou, he’s bought, improved, leased and managed property, starting with residential, then moving to hotels and shopping centers.
“I started small scale — houses, apartments, then complexes, multi-units,” he said, speaking at the Colonial Inn in Ellsworth, one of his rescue projects. “I just like the work. I tried retiring about 15 years ago. I thought that was the thing to do. It’s fun but I don’t play golf. I’m still pretty active. So I just work.”
His son, a structural engineer, runs the northern division of Cassidy’s company, DC Rentals, while Cassidy continues to look for opportunities in Maine. He owns and manages 52 properties around the state, including seven shopping centers.
Improvements at the Skowhegan plaza include repaving, re-landscaping and improving the façade. He’ll tackle the interior this winter, starting with changing out the lights for LEDs, then putting in new ceilings and revamping the walls. The existing businesses will remain.
“They’re all extremely happy,” he said. “They’ve got a new look. They’re saying, ‘Wow!’ And all the people who come in — it’s painted, it’s clean, they say, ‘Oh, what’s going on here?’ And what happens is they want to be part of it.”
Car museum also in the works
Apparently inexhaustible, Cassidy also started collecting classic cars a few years ago, and will build a museum for them at the Skowhegan plaza.
“I don’t know anything about museums, so it’s new to me. I just want to do it,” he said. “So I’ll learn a little at a time. I research, I read, I learn.”
The collection is currently at the Colonial Inn. There’s a stunning lineup out front, including a Plymouth Prowler, a restored 1981 Corvette, a 1999 Ford Mustang, Porsche Boxster and more.
“I just like cars,” he said. “I started buying them, most within the last year.”
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