The Norway Opera House clock tower is visible from Country Club Road.

The Norway Opera House clock tower is visible from Country Club Road.

NORWAY — Opera House owner Barry Mazzaglia has appealed the town’s action to take the historic 1894 building, saying the town abused the power of eminent domain and if he retains the building, it will be occupied within 18 to 20 months.

In an 11-page document dated Jan. 25 and filed in Oxford County Superior Court on Jan. 26, Mazzaglia claims the town allowed the Opera House roof to leak “for years” while it owned the Main Street property and that he not only upgraded the building to a usable state with a heating system, working toilets and so forth, but “risked their life preventing a near roof collapse” to bring “life back to an old building.”

The Board of Selectmen has asked the court to allow the town to take the building because, it claims, it poses an imminent unsafe situation downtown and the owner has done little to correct the situation since the roof partially collapsed more than two years ago.

“We have no desire to make this any more involved than it has to be,” Town Manager David Holt said Wednesday when asked about the process of answering Mazzaglia’s appeal.

Holt said he believes Mazzaglia may have a number of claims in the appeal that a judge may rule as irrelevant to the case.

“We will only answer the questions we have to,” he said. “If it’s not relevant, then we won’t deal with it.”

Among Mazzaglia’s claims is that the taking of a property because its owner may or may not make better improvements is “fundamentally wrong and unconstitutional.”

He further states that a town official attempted to purchase the building for $250,000 and when the offer was rejected that (unnamed) official used his town relationships by having the town try to take it by eminent domain.

“This is a manipulation of the American standard of procurement using abusive legal practices,” said Mazzaglia in his appeal. “This is a means to deny an investor just compensation for his investment.”

Mazzaglia also accused the same town officials with “unethical conduct and abuse of power.”

And he also claims that the town assigned the eminent
domain action to Bitim Enterprises, the company he owns in New
Hampshire, when in fact the owners of the building are himself and
Sharon Cassidy, both of Londonderry, N.H.

Voters authorized the selectmen to initiate steps necessary to take the Opera House property in an eminent domain proceeding using $200,000 donated by Bill and Beatrice Damon of Norway. Bill Damon is a longtime member of the Board of Selectmen. The money will be used to pay the owner whatever a judge deems a reasonable price for the building, whether it be the $185,000 that the town has the building appraised for, or not.

The 17,618-square-foot building sits on about a quarter-acre land parcel. It includes a one-story log building and the three-story brick building with a full basement and a tower containing an historic clock and bell. It sits in the heart of the downtown historic district and was once the center of cultural events. Its first-floor storefronts have been vacant since the partial roof collapse Sept. 21, 2007, and the two upper floors have been vacant for decades.

The collapse of part of the sagging roof compromised the stability of the building. Since that time, officials have grown increasingly concerned about the stability of the building and lack of response from the owner, who has turned down offers from the town to purchase the building several times.

Two engineering studies have deemed the structure to be “unsafe to the public and neighboring property.”

Mazzaglia acknowledged the building suffered a “structural failure” but said it is now controlled and being repaired. “Its cause leads back to when the town owned it prior and succeeding ownerships who failed to care for the property,” he said. He said the Opera House is in better condition now than it was when he purchased it in 2003.

Plans are to use a Community Development Block Grant of up to $150,000 to stabilize the building. The town will also use $15,000 from the Damons’ money and another $50,000 from a Norway, Maine Opera House Corp. donation plus any other funds it can find to stabilize the back wall of the building.

Once the building is stabilized, selectmen say the plan, which they have not formally voted on yet, will most likely be to then turn the building over to a non-profit entity like the Norway Maine Opera House Corp.

Holt said he expects the town will have control of the building through the eminent domain process “fairly quickly.”

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