Rumford officials are seeking proposals to lease the old Central Fire Station at 151 Congress St. The preference of the Select Board and town manager is for it to be used for a restaurant, microbrewery or similar operations. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times

RUMFORD — The Select Board announced this month that the town is seeking proposals to lease the 1923 Central Fire Station.

Town Manager George O’Keefe said the building at 151 Congress St. is structurally sound. However, the floor cannot take the weight it used to. The floor load rating was lower than what it was certified for in the 1990s after structural steel was added.

Those modifications “were supposed to give us a floor rating of like 40,000 pounds in an individual bay,” he said. “The new floor rating is now only 10,000 pounds.”

That rating established following an evaluation by the technical consulting firm Haley Ward of Bangor.

“That’s a very significant finding,” O’Keefe said, “because that reinforcement that was done in 1990 was presumed to be valid all the way up to the last day that we had trucks in the station,” which was Oct. 22, 2024. “In fairness to everybody, we had plenty of concerns about floor load in the station. But we had an engineering document from 1990 that said we could have a 44,000 pound floor load.”

“We’re very lucky something didn’t happen,” he said, crediting U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and U.S. Rep. Jared for getting federal funding to replace the station.

The town is seeking proposals from commercial developers and entrepreneurs until Sept. 29, with proposals reviewed by the Select Board within 30 days of that deadline.

O’Keefe said, “The desire of the Select Board and myself is for that building to house a restaurant, microbrewery or other similar operations. We’ve had groups approach us about exactly this type of idea in the past, but whether or not that can materialize now is an unknown.”

The building is a lease only, he said, because it is paired with the Town Hall, and “we want to make sure to maintain the historic integrity of the building as a paired structure with the Town Hall, and for the people of the town to retain that building as an asset.”

He added, “If it gets leased, it becomes taxable, and so any new lessee would pay property taxes on the building. We can still have it producing property taxes, even under town ownership, as long as it’s under a commercial lease.”

In other business, the paving contract was awarded to Spencer Paving Group of Turner for $661,387. It was $57,000 higher than the low bid from Maine-ly Paving Services of Canaan. O’Keefe said the town has been working with Spencer Paving Group for awhile.

Paving this summer will be on Somerset Street, Beliveau Road, Franklin Street, Penobscot Street, High Street, Industrial Park Road, with a lot of sidewalk work.

Knox Loam & Gravel of Rumford was awarded the contract for summer sand and gravel for $129,000 delivered, and winter sand delivered for $96,000 for 4,000 cubic yards.