The University of Maine (UMaine) has officially rescinded its offer to sell the Hutchinson Center to Calvary Chapel Belfast.
Earlier this summer, UMaine selected Calvary Chapel Belfast as the winning bid for the property following a thorough review of the three offers, including from the Waldo Community Action Partners and Future of the Hutchinson Center/Waterfall Arts.
The Hutchinson Center previously served as “an educational and cultural center for the mid-coast area” according to the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce. The University officially closed the Center last year in response to a decline in usage.
Housed within the Hutchinson Center is an internet access hub, strategically located such that it can help provide internet connectivity throughout the state. As part of the Center’s sale, UMaine explained that it anticipated needing to relocate the hub “to a purpose-built utility building.”
“While other respondents proposed favorable property lease arrangements and access as solicited in the [request-for-proposals],” UMaine explained in a press release Thursday, “[Future of the Hutchinson Center/Waterfall Arts] suggested that the hub could permanently remain within the existing building.”
Calvary Chapel Belfast’s offer would have reportedly allowed the hub to remain on the property, but it would have needed to be moved to a different location on site.
The church was described as planning to use the Hutchinson Center to house its addiction recovery efforts, as well as its homeschool co-op program.
Almost immediately after UMaine announced that it had selected Calvary Chapel Belfast as the winning bid, appeals were brought by the groups whose applications were denied.
UMaine subsequently defended its decision to sell the Hutchinson Center to Calvary Chapel Belfast, explaining that the church had the highest-scoring proposal and “the university cannot discriminate, including on the basis of religion.”
“Doing so would be against the law and inconsistent with the university’s commitment to inclusion,” they wrote.
The University further noted in this statement that they had received at least 135 comments from members of the public regarding their decision to sell to the church.
They also explained that the challenges submitted by the non-selected applicants were “thoroughly reviewed but did not present evidence to warrant a revision to the original result.”
“Long-standing State and System public procurement policy and process is intentionally designed to protect against bias and ensure the integrity of public entities in their stewardship of public resources and trust,” they continued.
“Every organization and individual had the same opportunity to submit a proposal in response to the Hutchinson Center [request-for-proposal], and all proposals received were scored by the same objective standards, which have been publicly available for eight months,” they concluded.
Click Here to Read the Full Statement Defending Calvary Chapel Belfast’s Selection
The University of Maine System’s Vice Chancellor for Finance & Administration said in a statement Thursday that while the request-for-proposals was conducted with “integrity and full transparency,” the evaluation criteria used “did not adequately allow for the full financial impacts of proposals to be considered.”
“As Vice Chancellor for Finance & Administration, I uniquely appreciate that the avoidance of hundreds of thousands of dollars in relocation expenses presents clear financial and operational benefits that are decidedly in the best interests of the System and thus should have been valued in the criteria by which all proposals were scored,” wrote Vice Chancellor Ryan Low, who also serves as the System’s treasurer, in his response to the Future of the Hutchinson Center/Waterfall Arts appeal.
“Please know that my final decision is specific to a single deficiency of the evaluation criteria and is not a reflection on the merits of the proposals submitted by any respondent or any other aspect of the university’s process,” he stated.
The decision to rescind Calvary Chapel Belfast’s offer cannot be challenged, according to a statement from the University of Maine System.
Click Here to Read the UMaine and the System’s Full Press Release
UMaine has said that it expects to announce by September 26 “how new offers for the sale or transfer of the Hutchinson Center will be solicited.”
It is not clear at this time whether a new request-for-proposals will be issued or if the property will be listed with a pre-qualified commercial broker.
UMaine and the University of Maine System will not provide further comment on the original request-for-proposal process.
Wow. Really shady. I wasn’t aware of the extent of the bigotry in Belfast until this fiasco. It’s a shame the university bowed to it. Especially when the church offered to remedy the whole internet access thing so generously. This is sad.
Oh boy.
Talk about bigotry.
It’s okay with the leftists though because it’s against Christians.
This is completely despicable.
Well, God knew this was going to happen so something better will come available.
Count your blessings religious sponsors are the source of a lot of illegal invaders. This place would be a flop house so fast your head would spin.
Um, no Moms.
Calvary does not do that.
Catholic Charities does though.
Get your facts straight before making stupid accusations.
Besides, if Calvary were a left wing non profit helping to destroy the country like Catholic Charities, UMaine would have thrown a party for them.
Maybe or maybe not today but neither did most of the others till they saw the $$$.