RUMFORD – Another longtime business located in Abbott Farm Plaza off Route 2 is moving out.

Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice president and Chief Executive Officer David McDaniel said the agency will relocate its office and 25 staff members to Dixfield during the first half of April.

“This wasn’t about finding a cheaper place for the office,” McDaniel said Tuesday afternoon from his Lewiston office.

Instead, he said that the agency was worried about the long-term stability of its lease with the plaza’s Massachusetts landlord.

“We have seen a lot of the plaza’s major tenants move out, and we don’t know what is going to happen with the property,” he added.

Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice had hoped to move its Rumford office to the Rumford Hospital campus, but McDaniel said no space could be found there.

The hospital, however, does own property in Dixfield along Weld Street where the Elsemore Dixfield Clinic is located.

“We want to be a partner with the hospital, that’s why, within five to six years, we hope to move back onto the hospital campus,” McDaniel said.

He said he doesn’t believe the agency relocation of about 10 miles to another town will alter its longstanding relationship with the River Valley communities it serves or the hospital.

“We are committed to Rumford Hospital and the River Valley communities. We still feel like we are very much a part of the River Valley,” he added.

Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice is a Medicare-certified home care and hospice agency with offices in Wilton, Rumford, Oxford, Bridgton and Lewiston.

The agency’s desired relocation of its office out of the plaza would leave only one business, Dollar Depot.

Ames Department Store, the former Abbott Farm Plaza anchor, closed in 2002 after its Connecticut-based retailer, Ames Department Stores Inc., failed to emerge from bankruptcy protection from creditors.

Another plaza business, Rent-Way, a rental-purchase store, closed after it and 294 other Rent-Way Inc. stores across the nation were purchased during the winter of 2002-03 by Texas-based Rent-A-Center Inc.

[email protected]