Odd Fellows building sale continuing

NORWAY – The sale of the Odd Fellows Building will continue despite recent legal entanglements by Harrison resident Dawn Solomon and her holdings in New Horizons Capital Investment, owners of the historic Main Street building.

Assistant Attorney General Michael Miller, director of the state’s Attorney General’s Healthcare Crimes Unit, said the sale of the building can continue. The vacant building, which is on the market for $179,000, is considered by Norway Downtown as an important link to the economic health of the downtown business district.

“Currently, with the criminal case pending there is no attachment or restrictions on the property from that particular action,” she said Thursday afternoon.

Dawn Cummings admitted Friday to charges that she stole $4 million from the MaineCare system through her Living Independence Network Corporation, which overbilled the state for hours and expenses since January 206.

Solomon, president, shareholder and treasurer of the company, also owns other commercial and residential property in the Oxford Hills with her husband, Harvey Solomon, under the corporate name of New Horizon Capital Investment, a real estate holding company.

The Solomons purchased the three-story brick building, which housed the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge No. 16., in July 2008 for $63,500 from Northeast Bank in Lewiston, which held the mortgage. At that time, Harvey Solomon said they hoped to place a high-scale restaurant on the first floor, offices in the second floor and apartments or even condominiums on the third floor after an extensive renovation of both the exterior and interior.

In March, just five months before federal agents raided Dawn Solomon’s business on lower Main Street, the Solomons put the building up for sale. At the time, Harvey Solomon said plans to lease the space changed suddenly when other unexpected projects came up.

“Our guys have so many other projects going on. We didn’t anticipate this at first,” said Solomon, who renovated the front facade of the building but had stopped other renovations.

“It’s really a new idea. I just threw it out there,” said Solomon when asked to be more specific about his decision to sell the property.

Beth Miller of Village Square Realty, who has been marketing the building and several others owned by the Solomons, said this week that as far as she knows the sale of the building is continuing.

“We had a lot of really good activity on it for awhile,” said Miller of early bites on the building that have waned recently with the winter weather. “We’re continuing to market the building.”

The basement and first floor of the Odd Fellows Building, which is adjacent to the Opera House, was built in 1894 after the great fire of that year destroyed the majority of the Main Street. The second and third floors were added in 1911. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of the historic downtown district.

In addition to the Odd Fellows organization, the building once housed the district court, a jail and other businesses.

The Solomons did some interior and exterior renovation work using in part state funds administered through the now dissolved Oxford Hills Growth Council. The drawdown of funds for renovation work such as $20,000 from a Department of Economic and Community Development grant in 2008, had to be done with the approval of the Board of Selectmen, who were “keepers” of the Municipal Investment Trust Fund program, that issued the DECD money, Town Manager David Holt said.

Holt said the town has no legal or financial interest in the building.

The DECD money was to be used for the construction of the Odd Fellows Building structural walls that would go from the basement to the third floor, replacement of some of the crumbling interior brick wall and for new electrical service to replace the existing antiquated service, a project estimated to cost about $800,000.

The Department of Economic and Community development funds were transferred to the Solomons with the stipulation that the funds be used for major renovation of the buildings.

It is unclear if the work was completed or all the funds were used. Marcie Boughter, who administered the funds for the Growth Council, was not available for comment Thursday.

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