NORWAY – There has been limited interest in purchasing the Odd Fellows Hall, according to the Realtor trying to sell the 19th century brick building at 380 Main St.
Michael Jacobsen of King Real Estate said only three or four people have shown interest in it. “They’re mostly local,” he said. “It’s just a shell of a building.”
Jacobsen said he believes the declining economy and the cost to renovate are major reasons it has not sold.
The interior was gutted by Harvey Solomon, owner of the building before the bank foreclosed on it and tried to sell it at auction in March 2011.
A Norway businessman was attempting to purchase the building from TD Bank, which bought it at a foreclosure auction for $89,000 in March 2011, but that sale fell through.
Dawn and Harvey Solomon of New Horizons Capital Investment purchased it in July 2008 for $63,500. They told town officials they planned to renovate the building and reopen storefronts on the first floor.
Although the couple secured the back wall and cleared the interior of debris, renovations stopped in 2010 just before Dawn Solomon was charged and subsequently convicted of bilking the state’s MaineCare system out of more than $4 million. The building was put up for auction by TD Bank along with a dozen other Solomon properties.
A study of Odd Fellows Hall by Resurgence Engineering and Preservation Inc. of Portland several years ago indicated it would take more than $800,000 to fully renovate it.
The basement and first floor of the hall were built in 1894, and the other two floors were added in 1910. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of the historic downtown district. It once housed the District Court, a jail and businesses.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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- The Odd Fellows Hall, left, sits next to the Norway Opera House in downtown Norway. Both are presently vacant, but plans are in the works to renovate and lease out the first-floor storefronts at the Opera House.
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