CAMDEN — After sending a code violation order to the owner of 39 Main Street, in downtown Camden, Camden Select Board will hold a public hearing Feb. 18 at 6:30 p.m. on what the town has determined to be a structurally dangerous building.

The town had set the hearing date more than a month ago, when Planning Director Jeremy Martin briefed the Select Board on the status of the building. He had contracted with the engineering firm WBRC, Inc., based in Portland, in late fall to review the condition of the building. 

On November 18, engineers and town staff together inspected 39 Main Street, a stick-built structure that straddles the outflow of the Megunticook River into Camden Harbor. 

In a subsequent report, the engineers wrote: "In our judgment, the building at 39 Main Street is structurally unsafe and unstable, constitutes a fire hazard, is unsuitable for the occupancy, and constitutes a hazard to safety because of inadequate maintenance, dilapidation and abandonment."

See the Feb. 18 Select Board premeeting packet for the full WBRC report.

In early January, 39 Main Street ownership was in the hands of Larry Weatherholtz, of Cape Neddick. Former owner Janice Kay was noted as holding the mortgage on the property.

But when Camden Town Attorney Bill Kelly town sent notice of the Feb. 18 public hearing on January 15 to Kay, it was just a day after learning that Weatherholtz had handed the property back to Kay via a deed in lieu of foreclosure.

Therefore, Kelly said, the town would not serve Weatherholtz with a notice of the hearing.

In the letter to Kay, Kelly noted that she had reportedly retained an engineer to address the conditions of the property, with possible recommended repairs.

In  the town's violation notice issued Oct. 4, Camden described the building as sitting on posts that rest on granite rock on the river’s outfall. Part of it is leans onto the nearby Smiling Cow building, the town said. Additionally, the building is apparently affixed to the Maine Dept. of Transportation owned bridge that spans the river in downtown Camden.

That bridge is due for a $2.63 million rebuild in 2026, a project labeled by the DOT as a bridge superstructure replacement.

"As I have indicated to you over many conversations the Town has been very concerned about the structural integrity of your building and has been trying to get you to take this seriously," wrote Planning and Development Director Jeremy Martin to Weatherholtz, in early fall.

At that point in time, 39 Main Street had already been unoccupied for, “many years now,” said Martin, following the departure of the gift shop Surroundings, which Kay had owned.

According to the National Register of Historic Places, the building dates back to August 1915, when it was originally constructed as the Waiting Station for the Rockland, Thomaston and Camden Railway. That was a time when the public traveled by electric trolley from Camden to Rockport, Rockland, Thomaston and even Warren, along a track that ran on what is now Route 1. (Read more about it in Barbara F Dyer's, 'Trolley Transportation.')

The building is part of the Camden Great Fire Historic District that was entered into the National Register Jan. 9, 2007 by Ann Morris and Christi Mitchell, working on behalf of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. They wrote in 2006: "The boundary of the Camden Great Fire Historic District have been drawn to include all of those resources rebuilt after the fire of 1892 that retain overall integrity of design, materials, workmanship, location, association, setting and feeling from the period of significance."

39 Main Street is one of a few buildings that straddle the Megunticook River outlet as it empties into Camden Harbor.

“The back of the building stands on wooden pilings in the catch basin of the Megunticook River falls,” the Register description said. 

While the National Register dates the building’s construction to 1915, the town has recorded its wood-frame construction in 1930, with improvements recorded 1999.

For a time, and until 1959, Central Maine Power owned the building, and it served as an office and store where customers could pay electric bills and buy small electrical appliances. The second floor was used as an apartment. 

The Select Board will be operating in a quasi-judicial capacity during the upcoming hearing, and will follow rules laid out in state statute governing dangerous buildings.