LEWISTON — Contract work spraying to prevent mold in the Grand Trunk Railroad depot building should begin Monday.
A $5,100 federal environmental grant through the EPA’s Brownfields program has been approved to pay Auburn’s Atlantic Environmental Services to spray disinfectant in the basement and make sure the depot building is free of mold, Lincoln Jeffers, Lewiston’s director of economic and community development, said.
The last step in approving that grant was a public hearing Monday night at Lewiston City Hall. Jeffers said it was attended by Lucien Gosselin, president of the Lewiston and Auburn Railroad Co., Lewiston resident Pauline Gudas and the woman proposing to build the cafe in the building.
She has been identified as Karen Pulkkinen of Portland.
Pulkkinen plans to lease the building from the railroad company to build a cafe there. She has created a Website for the property at grandtrunkcafe.com.
That cleanup is considered to be the final hurdle in the effort to settle the lease.
The renovation project, targeting one of the most historic structures in the city, was announced in 2010. Renovations began in September and it involved installing new water, sewer and natural gas lines as well as a new heating and air conditioning system.
The work so far has cost about $380,000, paid for with a $200,000 U.S Department of Agriculture grant and $115,800 of Lewiston’s Community Development Block Grant allocation. The railroad has paid for the rest of the work.
Work wrapped up in January, but two large puddles of water were discovered in the basement this spring. One was blamed on heavy spring rains leaking through part of the outside sidewalk and the second on a faulty a valve on the building’s basement fire sprinkler system.
The building was tested for mold and none was found, but railroad officials agreed to disinfect the building further if they could get the EPA grant.
The depot has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979. Local historian Douglas Hodgkin said his studies show it was built in 1874 and served as the landing spot for many of Lewiston-Auburn’s Canadian immigrants for many years.
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- The Grand Trunk Railroad depot as it used to look.
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