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November 10, 2015

Former Crosby School in Belfast to be auctioned

The owner of the vacant Crosby School in Belfast plans to auction the 1927 building in December after a discouraging environmental assessment led a Waterville developer to drop his option to purchase the building.

The Bangor Daily News reported that the minimum bid for the three-story, brick building in the heart of Belfast will be set at $400,000.

Paul Boghossian, who led the multi-million-dollar redevelopment of Waterville's historic Hathaway Mill, had signed a purchase-and-sale agreement this summer and planned to convert the 38,000-square-foot school into an apartment complex with up to 35 units.

But a recent environmental report by Portland-based Ransom Consulting found hazardous materials, including asbestos, lead paint, universal wastes and mold, on the property, the BDN reported. After the school was closed in 1991 due to poor air conditions, tests found high levels of mold spores, carbon dioxide and various organic compounds in the air, according to the BDN.

The owner of the building, New York City-based National Theatre Workshop for the Handicapped, which bought it a few years after the shuttering, reportedly spent $3.5 million to add theaters, lounges, apartments and elevators to the building, the BDN reported. In 2013, the organization vacated the school and put it up for sale.

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