The city of Lewiston doesn’t need to sell the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

What it needs is someone to buy it.

The chronically undersold arena houses one overachieving franchise, the Lewiston Maineiacs, whose recent rush through the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoffs, en route to the President’s Cup final, has energized the community and kept the Colisee filled to its rafters.

Maniacal support by the team’s fanatics has proven the Colisee has economic viability, but also sharpens the precipice over which the facility falls when hockey is dormant. Aside from the rare concert, rally or children’s show, the Colisee flounders in landing big-ticket acts to support its operation.

Mayor Laurent Gilbert, who proposed the sale, said Tuesday it’s time for Lewiston to “cut its losses” with the Colisee, a true statement only if the city expected it to profit in the first place. When cities rescue crumbling buildings, as Lewiston did with the neglected Central Maine Civic Center in 2004, it’s usually because nobody else would.

Three years, and $3.2 million in improvements, later, there’s little evidence of a rising market. Saddled with debt, the Colisee offers a meager income potential that makes it a risky investment, at best, with any likely suitors offering mere pennies on the taxpayer dollar, especially with the litany of conditions attached to any potential sale.

And, on Tuesday, accusations flew that taking bids for the Colisee is the shortsighted fulfillment of a Gilbert campaign promise. Councilor Renee Bernier called this an “insult to people’s intelligence,” because she feels, as many do, that the market for the smallish arena is soft.

A look around Maine, where arenas in Portland, Augusta and Bangor all receive taxpayer subsidies, supports Bernier’s statement. Unless the city makes a serious attempt to sell the Colisee, and not hold the equivalent of a municipal garage sale, this effort should be accurately regarded as political.

What the Colisee should be given, aside from $5.7 million to settle its debt, is time. Global Spectrum is contracted to manage the arena through next year. Androscoggin Bank sponsorship is committed through 2016. The Maineiacs are the best team in their league and have become a real source of pride (and bragging rights) in L-A.

The Colisee neither needs the instability from a potential sale, nor a politically charged, yet lackluster, effort by the city to rid itself of a fiscal headache. If the city is looking for the latter, there’s several hundred thousand square feet of empty mill that could use attention.

By the time the city is done with that, it might be time to consider really selling the Colisee.