CALAIS — The Maine National Guard has submitted a proposal to the Office of the Maine Attorney General to sell the Calais armory, a step that could advance the city’s long‑standing effort to buy the building.
Lt. Col. Margaret St. Pierre, the Guard’s public affairs officer, confirmed the proposal to Monitor Local and said the review is now in the attorney general’s hands.
City Manager Mike Ellis said the city remains interested in the building and hopes to proceed with a purchase if the sale is approved.
Renovated in 2016, the armory was last appraised at $575,000. Ellis said he has not yet been told what the final sale price will be.
Ellis said the building’s central location and recent repairs make it well suited for city administration and the Police Department, and that with further renovation it could also house the Calais Fire Department.
A spokesperson for state Sen. Marianne Moore, R‑Calais, confirmed the city will have first priority on the purchase if it can pay fair market value.
The city has pursued the purchase of the property for several years.
In 2023, Moore presented a bill, L.D. 1987, cosponsored by Rep. Anne Perry, D-Calais, authorizing the adjutant general to sell the armory. The bill passed, and late last year Moore wrote a letter to the Joint Standing Committee on Veterans and Legal Affairs in support of the city’s purchase of the building.
Ellis said he has been contacting the Maine National Guard periodically for updates.
“I would reach out before every single council meeting,” he said in a telephone interview with Monitor Local earlier this year. “The brigadier general has advanced up the chain three ranks since I started.”
Late last year, the Guard announced it would keep the armory, citing potential changes in the Maine National Guard’s assignment of units.
The Maine National Guard could change its mind again, but a spokesperson for the Office of the Maine Attorney General confirmed the proposal to sell the armory has been received and is under review. The office expects to issue a response sometime this summer.
The final decision on whether to divest the building will be made by the Maine National Guard’s commissioner and adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Diane Dunn.
Construction of the Calais armory was completed in 1956 at a cost of $197,000, “including all equipment and furnishings,” according to Bangor Daily News coverage at the time.
Three‑quarters of the cost was covered by the federal government, with the state of Maine and the city of Calais covering the rest.
The first unit stationed in the Calais armory was Battery C of the 314th AAA AW Battalion, which brought about $2 million worth of anti‑aircraft weaponry and equipment. A variety of units have been based there over the armory’s 70‑year history, and Detachment 2 of the 1136th Transportation Co. has been stationed there since 2007.
It is not yet clear what will happen to this unit if the Calais armory is sold.
Like many National Guard armories in Maine, the Calais armory served as a multiuse space, used for Guard drill practice and equipment storage, and also hosting dances, Rotary Club and Oddfellows meetings, and community auctions. Calais schools used rooms there for classes in the 1970s while the new high school was being built.
More recently, the armory has been available to rent as an event space, and a Maine National Guard recruiter has an office there.
