Citation Video Project Team Highlights Video
The Central Building, designed by Augusta-based architect W.G. Bunker, was built in 1917-19. Constructed of brick in the Colonial Revival style, the building was part of the Maine Industrial School for Girls complex, an organization founded in 1874 as a place where wayward girls could be safely housed and given a moral, social, and academic education. One of the later structures built for the school, it marked a movement away from the earlier model for such facilities, where the residents lived, worked, and had classes all in the same building. While Central Building included bedrooms for 16 girls, its primary purpose was for classrooms where schooling could more closely conform to State of Maine curriculum requirements than had previously been the case. It also contained the central laundry, gymnasium, and dental office.
The building was renovated for state offices in the 1970s and those changes significantly reconfigured the interior plan, as well as dropping all the ceilings and covering over the hardwood floors. Virtually no historic fabric remained visible in the upper stories. A few areas of tin ceiling and two openings with historic door trim remained in the basement level, along with one historic door. While most original windows remained in the building, the large arched transom windows on the façade were hidden behind plywood and the windows below them replaced with inappropriate vinyl units. Prior to this rehabilitation project, the building had been vacant for several years.
When Central Building was purchased by the Community Housing of Maine, there were many issues to address for the restoration of the site. Work began with the removal of the 1970’s alterations, which exposed historic hardwood flooring in nearly all the spaces, and a section of the original tin ceiling that had been hidden in the main entry. All original windows were restored and reinstalled, with new trim made based on the design of the few surviving pieces. Allied storm windows were also installed to improve efficiency and to preserve the structure for the future.
This project has returned one of the key buildings on the Maine Industrial School for Girls campus to productive use after a period of vacancy. Problematic additions and alterations from the late twentieth century were unwound to better represent the historic design of the structure. This new residential space creates 29 units of affordable senior housing, and it joins student housing and professional office tenants in the other recently rehabilitated buildings at the complex. In an area rich with history, this project, together with preservation efforts on other buildings on the campus, has helped to revive an historically and architecturally significant site that was neglected and largely vacant into a vibrant mixed-use and multi-generational community.
Project Participants
Bree LaCasse, Community Housing of Maine
Ryan Senatore, AIA LEED-AP BD+C, Ryan Senatore Architecture
Wright Ryan Construction Inc.
Jack McInerny, Atlantic Hardwoods (floor restoration)
Richard & Brian Bradstreet , Bradstreet Masonry
Jacobs Glass
Otis Atwell
Maurice Salinger, Curtis Thaxter
Bangor Savings Bank
Evernorth (NNEHIF)
Maine State Housing Authority
Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston
Scott Hanson, Sutherland Conservation & Consulting
