CARIBOU, Maine — Soderberg Construction is beginning to take down the former Sincock building on Main Street in Caribou, as part of an agreement between RSU 39, the city of Caribou, and Caribou Senior Housing, LLC, a company owned by a group of local investors.
As part of land requirements for a new PreK-8 school project, the school system that serves Caribou, Limestone and Stockholm had to return certain school properties to the city of Caribou so the land could be later used for the relocation of Teague Park, the site of the future school. This transfer needed to occur to meet national park land swap requirements, according to both city and RSU 39 officials.
Once Hilltop Elementary School was closed and transferred to the city in 2017, city officials conveyed it to Caribou Senior Housing, LLC. In exchange, the partners in the LLC agreed to take care of the asbestos abatement and demolition of the Sincock building and to hand over some adjacent land on which a new park will be built. Carl Soderberg, owner of Soderberg construction and member of Caribou Senior Housing LLC, is the owner of the adjacent property and his company also is responsible for the abatement and demolition of the Sincock building as part of this arrangement with the city.
Some of land across the street where the Caribou Learning Center currently stands also will become part of Teague Park. The Learning Center building also will be demolished. However, since there is not enough land across the street for an equivalent value exchange, the city needed to acquire the Sincock building and adjacent property to successfully complete the land swap.
According to RSU 39 Business Manager Mark Bouchard, Soderberg Construction is spending time between jobs to take down the Sincock building. Bouchard said both Sincock and the Learning Center should be down by spring.
The business manager added that the Sincock building did not contain a significant amount of asbestos, and that the abatement was finished just before workers started tearing down the Learning Center’s last month.
As of Friday, Jan. 11, workers had removed an outer foam layer that looked like brick from the Sincock building, exposing the actual brickwork underneath.
New school construction is scheduled to continue this spring, with the facility expected to open in 2020.
