A newly created company affiliated with a southern Maine real estate broker bought the former Inland Hospital in Waterville on Thursday, with plans to redevelop the property into a mixed-use site including a walk-in care facility.
The 200 Kennedy Memorial Drive campus was on the market for $2.7 million, according to a listing from the Dunham Group real estate company. It includes several medical buildings and parking lots set on 30 acres.
A company called Inland Commercial Center LLC bought the property, said King Weinstein, a southern Maine real estate broker affiliated with the company. He said the Saco firm was set up in March with the purpose of developing the former Inland Hospital campus.
“We have a quick care medical facility coming in as well as other users bringing many jobs back,” Weinstein said in a text Thursday.
The campus will be renamed Inland Commercial Center LLC.
It’s been nearly a year since Northern Light Health closed Waterville’s only inpatient hospital. Inland Hospital employed 392 people, including dozens of health care providers who have since dispersed across Maine, causing thousands to lose primary care. In the months after it closed, some residents have pushed for the empty facility to be reused as a hospital
But TC Haffenreffer, broker with the Dunham Group, said the property — and low price tag — was advertised for redevelopment from the start.
“It’s a pretty unique property, and the likelihood of another hospital stepping in was pretty unlikely,” Haffenreffer said. “So it had to be priced accordingly for room for redevelopment. The hospital, I know, wanted to see something good happen.”
There is still an emergency department and outpatient hospital in Waterville at MaineGeneral Health’s Thayer campus, but Inland had the city’s only inpatient beds. Without it, a growing group of Waterville-area patients are receiving care dozens of miles away at other hospitals.
A spokesperson for Northern Light Health said Weinstein is a well-known Maine-based developer, and under his direction, they are “confident that the Waterville community will benefit from redevelopment of this property.”
Haffenreffer said the quick care medical group plans to move into one of Inland’s medical offices, while the other two will be listed as separate properties. In the meantime, he said, the former hospital building will be redeveloped into a mixed-use site.
The Dunham Group advertised the property as well suited for a range of redevelopment concepts, including medical, educational, residential, senior living or mixed-use applications.
Kimberly Lindlof, president of the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce, said she is looking forward to seeing a positive economic impact from the redevelopment.
“We’re hopeful that the redevelopment of the Inland property will produce jobs for the region, to help replace some of those that were lost; that it will stimulate traffic and commercial activity on KMD and that side of Waterville,” Lindlof said. “And add to Waterville’s tax base.”
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