AUGUSTA – MaineGeneral Medical Center plans to hold an online auction to sell its Augusta hospital campus and Seton campus in Waterville.

The moves come as the hospital system pursues its consolidation plans, which are anchored by a new 192-bed regional hospital in north Augusta slated to open in December 2013.

The online auction is scheduled Oct. 22-24 by Jones Lang LaSalle, which has offices in Boston and provides commercial real estate services. Minimum bids for each property will be in the $1.7 million to $2 million range, officials said.

Prequalified prospective buyers — no other hospitals, please, due to deed restrictions — can bid on the two properties together or separately. MaineGeneral won’t be moving into the new hospital until spring and fall 2014, which means any developer buying the property will be able to collect rent from the hospital to offset the cost.

“We’ve been working on the plan and what direction to take for quite some time,” said Paul Stein, administrative director for support services at MaineGeneral Medical Center. He said the consensus was “the best way to rid ourselves of these buildings would be to put them up for auction.”

“We realize it’s going to be a challenge to sell these buildings and we hope to attract some developers who have time to develop these buildings, because neither community needs to have more vacant buildings.”

The Augusta property covers just over 19 acres, including the seven-floor hospital, parking lots, three houses and a building that once housed the Augusta General School of Nursing and is now primarily used for offices. Some of the property borders the Kennebec River and the former Augusta Mental Health Institute campus.

The Family Medicine Institute building that houses the hospital’s primary care practice is not included in the sale, Stein said.

In Waterville, the 88-acre property includes the eight-floor Seton building on Chase Avenue, which once had 43 in-patient beds and currently houses offices and outpatient services.

Stein said the minimum bids set by the hospital are lower than the buildings’ appraisals.

“We had the buildings appraised three years ago and then six months ago, both the Seton campus and the Augusta campus, and they were between $2.5 and $3.5 million for each,” he said. Stein said the appraisers noted that buildings are unique and would be difficult to market.

He said hospital and city officials hope the properties can return to the tax rolls. Because the hospital is nonprofit, it is exempt from property taxes.

“We’re excited about the hospital’s plans and wish them well,” Waterville Mayor Karen Heck said. “I would love a developer to come in because that would free up a lot of the tax-exempt property we have in the city.”

Heck said the prospect of a planned natural gas supply line in central Maine would make the hospital site even more attractive.

“There is a real need for affordable residential property in Waterville, and if somebody wanted to develop that into residential property, it would be great,” Heck said.

She also suggested the Seton site could house a small for-profit college. Augusta City Manager William Bridgeo echoed some of Heck’s sentiments, but said he has concern about selling the property at auction.

“I might personally have taken a different approach and brought in some commercial developers” and sent out a request for proposals, he said. But, he added, “If a credible developer can step forward and reuse the building and it goes on the tax rolls, then great.”

Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Betty Adams can be reached at 621-5631 or at:

badams@centralmaine.com

 

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