State investigates Maine town’s demolition of historic rec center
Posted on April 28, 2025 | News
Bangor Daily News – Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli
State environmental officials are investigating the recent demolition of an asbestos-containing building in Patten, which may have skirted state regulations and also came as a shock to many locals.
On April 17, a handful of passersby were alarmed to watch as two excavators dug into the town’s 1941 recreation center at 12 Founders St., collapsing the roof and creating random piles of boards, tiles, siding, insulation and other debris.
But residents weren’t the only ones caught off-guard. The demolition also apparently violated state regulations governing the demolition of asbestos-containing structures.
According to state rules, municipalities that are tearing down an asbestos-contaminated structure must notify residents and state environmental officials five business days in advance of demolition.
But Patten did not file notice of the demolition with state officials, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. On Wednesday, DEP officials visited the demolition site after becoming aware of the situation, said Deputy Commissioner David Madore.
“I can confirm that DEP staff conducted a site visit yesterday,” Madore said on Thursday. “The Department presently considers this to be an open enforcement case. Our investigation is ongoing and the town is working with the department.”
State law also requires contractors to rope off the demolition site and post signs warning of asbestos, according to Madore, but it’s not clear that happened. No barriers or signs can be seen in videos and photos residents took of the demolition.
That demolition work must also be done by a contractor specifically licensed to handle asbestos. It’s not clear which firm handled the demolition of the Patten rec center.
Patten’s town manager did not respond to several email and phone requests seeking comment on the demolition.
Patten Select Board Chair Gregg Smallwood said on Thursday that he was not interested in talking with the Bangor Daily News.
“The building is gone and I don’t want to talk to you about it,” he said. “The DEP was here [yesterday] and it’s all taken care of.”
Resident Cheryl LaBelle, who volunteered at the recreation center for two decades, said that many people did not want it torn down and believed the town was going to do what it could to open it back up.
“We never got to vote on it, and we think they wanted to make darn sure the building came down before the annual town meeting on April 24,” she said.
The presence of asbestos in the recreation center was documented in a 226-page report produced last summer as part of a Phase II site assessment through the EPA’s Brownfield program, which helps to deal with contaminated sites.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SUNIq9HZSUYg6mo7C89Wy_AGIYewODBa/preview
Eastern Maine Development Corp. hired Campbell Environmental Group to complete the report as part of the federal program, according to EMDC President and CEO Lee Umphrey.
“We were also unaware of the demolition,” Umphrey said on Wednesday.
A Phase I Assessment indicated the potential for asbestos and other toxins, qualifying the recreation center for an extensive Phase II analysis, said Jennifer King, EMDC’s senior director of planning and development, who is a Brownfield specialist.
The Phase II assessment found asbestos in several parts of the recreation center, including 1,800 square feet of white siding, the rim around the boiler room door and two additional boxes of asbestos tiles in a second-floor room.
Once those assessments are complete, it is the town’s responsibility to follow demolition regulations, King said.
“If they choose to demolish, the DEP must be 100 percent involved in the process,” King added.
On Jan. 6, the Patten Select Board was notified of the Phase II report after the town received it the previous summer, according to meeting minutes.
But minutes from the Select Board’s biweekly meetings provide little other information about the building or its ultimate demolition.
During a meeting on Oct. 21, 2022, then-Select Board Chair Cody Brackett recommended having a company owned by Smallwood, who was the board’s vice chair at the time, excavate the building after its contents were removed, according to town minutes.
A BDN search of the minutes from January 2022 through April 2025 did not reveal any other references to contractors doing the demolition, and there was no discussion about obtaining bids for the work. When reached by the BDN, Smallwood refused to say who did the demolition.
The recreation center was officially closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. For decades before that, it was the hub for local meetings, dances, bingo, basketball games and roller skating, among other things. The legendary 1947 basketball team from the former Patten Academy played there on its way to winning a state championship and later getting inducted into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame.
This is not the first time the town has removed — or tried to remove — pieces of local history.
In recent years, the town’s 1845 Regular Baptist Church was slated for the same fate as the recreation center before residents banded together to save the structure, which is now a thriving cultural center owned by the Patten Historical Society. Last May, town officials had decades-old plantings removed from Patten Cemetery.
Before the rec center was torn down, the town had made some effort to improve it in recent years. Within the last decade, it put in structural supports to remediate stability issues in the building, said Ron Blum, planning board chairman. He added that those supports are now visible in the demolition debris.
Some residents now say they feel blindsided by the demolition, when they’d hoped the town could have made the effort to restore and reopen the center.
Mari Birmingham, the director of the recreation center for more than 10 years, fondly recalled many of the dances, sports games and other events held there, as well as when the building served as the town’s bomb shelter when she was a young girl.
“It breaks my heart. I had no idea. The last I knew they had tabled it and the people would decide. I don’t know what happened,” Birmingham said. “The sad thing is it’s too late. The children in this town have nothing and nobody at the town office cares.”