MONTICELLO, Maine — Nearly a year after the town’s selectmen were given permission to sell the vacant Wellington School, a buyer has yet to be found.
Town Manager Ginger Pryor said Thursday that despite a number of potential buyers touring the building, no one has committed to a purchase.
“We still have ads out, and we are hoping someone sees [one of them] and it generates interest,” she said Thursday.
Monticello is part of RSU 29, which also serves the communities of Houlton, Hammond and Littleton. The local school was closed at the end of the school year in June 2014 because of declining enrollment and rising expenses. Closing the school, which at the time served 66 students from pre-kindergarten through third grade, was expected to save the district $109,000 a year. The students were distributed to other schools in the Houlton area 13 miles away.
During a special town meeting on Oct. 27, 2015, 17 residents voted to allow the selectmen to sell or dispose of the Wellington School property in any way they deemed advisable. There was no opposition, as it was costing the town about $24,000 a year to keep the old school open. That money was spent on continually heating all parts of the building and maintenance costs that year while the town searched for a buyer for the school.
Pryor said that as of the beginning of 2016, it has cost $6,183 to heat the building.
“That is really the only expense, and it is pretty small because there is not much activity in the building,” she said. “The only thing we are still using it for is summer recreation.”
She added that the building is “beautiful,” but she thinks that the size of the structure “might be scaring people off.” The town is hoping to find a buyer to get the building back on the tax rolls.
