05/03/2022
High school math, and creative problem solving.
The Select Board of Waldoboro has recently decided that the Town should divest itself of our historic Friendship Street School and waterfront property, and has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP), for the reuse of same. One quite interesting esponse has been received by the town, which proposes to convert this lovely old building into four market rate apartments, something very badly needed in Waldoboro, due to our long standing rental housing crisis.
Since the Friendship Street School is perhaps the most valuable piece of property that the Town currently owns, it seems likely that the sale of this property might yield the Town something in the neighborhood of $150,000.
Coincidentally, our town is about to have the opportunity to purchase the solar array on the town's landfill, a visionary town project from a few years back that has been very effective in lowering the costs for electricity used by virtually all of the town's buildings by something like $3,500/yr. Due to the way this solar array was funded, e.g., through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPS), where the investors who built the array harvest multiple federal tax incentives, rapid depreciation, and Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), to offset their costs, the time has come when the town has the opportunity to buy this solar array from the private investors who originally funded the project, at about half of the original cast.
So, instead of borrowing money to purchase the solar array and paying it back over ten years or so, wouldn't it be clever if the town were to take the money from the sale of the Friendship Street School and use it to purchase the solar array, which has already been saving the town so much money for the last few years? It just so happens that, according to the PPA contract, the cost of purchasing the solar array from the original investors is almost exactly, wait for it: $150,000!
Since our solar array typically produces more or less all the electrical power the town uses every month, this means that the town could in effect trade the Friendship Street School property for the opportunity to totally eliminate the town's CMP bills for the next thirty years, which is the projected remaining life of the solar array. With the recent huge increases in the kWhr cost of power, this purchase is likely to result in a savings to the town of something like $800,000 over the life of the array.
As any high school math student would tell you, this is simply a no-brainer for Waldoboro; let's hope that our Select Board has the wisdom to act on this once in a lifetime opportunity!
Apartments Proposed for Friendship Street School - The Lincoln County News
