Legislation that would force the University of Maine System to hand over a now-closed remote learning center to its host city of Belfast received a mixed reaction during a hearing in Augusta on Monday afternoon.
About a dozen people — mostly from the Belfast area — spoke in favor of the bill, arguing that the local Hutchinson Center provides valuable remote learning and event space in the midcoast and that its original backers meant for it to serve the community.
But a representative for the university system opposed it, arguing that usage has been declining at the Hutchinson Center and that a competitive bidding process launched early this year for its sale or lease is “essential to upholding the public’s trust and stewarding taxpayer and tuition dollars with integrity.”
A trade group representing construction contractors also opposed the bill, and while lawmakers on the education committee didn’t take a side, they asked several pointed questions of its supporters.
At one point, Rep. Michael Brennan of Portland, a co-chair of the Legislature’s education committee, said he was not aware of a previous occasion when lawmakers had compelled the university system to give away one of its properties.
One name that loomed large during the hearing was MBNA, the credit card lender whose call centers once employed thousands in the midcoast and whose founder, Charles Cawley, helped to dream up and fund the Hutchinson Center in 2000.
The center was eventually donated to the university system in 2007 after MBNA was bought by Bank of America, and it was finally shuttered last summer. It was appraised at $2.5 million and put up for sale, lease or other “creative” offers in January. There’s also an outstanding debt of $885,000 on a bond that helped pay for the center to expand after the donation.
Now, a group called Committee for the Future of the Hutchinson Center is trying to transfer the center to Belfast, which has pledged funding to support the operation for several years. The committee hopes to convert it to a nonprofit organization that rents out its spaces. It has also submitted a bid for the building through the formal process initiated by the university system.
“The Hutchinson Center is not just an old building in the midcoast region,” said committee member Judy Stein. “It’s not a former grocery store. It’s not a former industrial complex. It was designed and built as a state-of-the-art adult education center that encourages teaching and learning of the highest standards. It was an extraordinary gift to the community.”
Samantha Warren, director of government and community affairs for the University of Maine System, said that no conditions were attached when it accepted the donation in 2007 and that it has invested $14.3 million of its own dollars in the Hutchinson Center.
The shift to online learning during the pandemic accelerated a decline in enrollment at the Belfast center, contributing to the “difficult but responsible decision” to close it, Warren said,
Warren added that the system is already struggling to afford a maintenance backlog across its other facilities, totaling more than $1.6 billion, and that it responded to the community’s outcry by offering a third option for bidders to propose creative alternatives for the Hutchinson Center.
The university’s latest strategic plan “calls for a careful assessment of underused facilities and appropriate action,” Warren said. “We are making progress and the buildings and land being divested by the university are being repurposed for the public’s benefit.”
