SKOWHEGAN — A few inches of a brick wall are complicating town officials’ decision about what to do with the former fire station on the island in Skowhegan.

The station, at 16 Island Ave., extends just barely onto the property of its neighbor, Brookfield White Pine Hydro LLC, which operates the Weston Hydroelectric Project in the Kennebec River.

That little bit of the building — likely just a few inches of an addition built in 1977 that includes a fire apparatus bay and the fire chief’s office — was never a problem when the town was using the fire station, Skowhegan and Brookfield officials say.

But since the Skowhegan Fire Department moved out of its home of 120 years in February 2024 to the new Public Safety Building on East Madison Road, the apparent property encroachment has been holding town officials back from exploring possibilities of what to do with the structure.

Town officials had understood that Brookfield was not willing to work with the town to grant a formal easement to  allow the town to sell the historic building, if it chose to do so.

Now, it seems the two sides are willing to work together, opening up Skowhegan’s options.

While no recorded easement exists, Brookfield has been allowing the town to use the station as well as an area next to it as additional parking for firefighters, said David Heidrich, a Maine-based spokesperson for Brookfield Renewable U.S., a subsidiary of a massive global investment firm headquartered in Toronto.

Heidrich said via email the apparent encroachment of the side of the fire station closest to Brookfield’s property was discovered only recently.

Should another owner take over the fire station, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses hydroelectric dams, would require and need to approve of a recorded easement among all parties, Heidrich said.

“This would aid in the town’s ability to transfer ownership in the future if it so chooses,” Heidrich wrote in response to questions about a possible easement.

Brookfield’s apparent willingness to consider an easement came as a surprise to Skowhegan Town Manager Dawn DiBlasi, who said she was having trouble getting ahold of anyone at Brookfield to discuss the matter.

DiBlasi said she and police Chief David Bucknam, who was  interim town manager before DiBlasi was hired in April 2024, met with a Brookfield representative last year as they were looking into the issue.

That person, according to DiBlasi, told them Brookfield had no issue continuing to grant the town access to operate the fire station or any other facility but was not willing to consider an easement, essentially preventing the town from even considering selling it.

As town officials briefly discussed the issue over several meetings, Selectman Elijah Soll asked DiBlasi to arrange a meeting with Brookfield to better understand its position.

DiBlasi tried to set up a meeting by emailing Heidrich, who is the manager of stakeholder relations for Brookfield, three times in late January, Freedom of Access Act request for emails shows.

Heidrich responded about a week after the initial request, saying the message was buried in his inbox. He asked DiBlasi for more information about Soll’s request for a meeting, which she provided.

DiBlasi followed up in mid-February. That email also went without a response, according to records the town provided.

In early March, after Heidrich, who is also Brookfield’s media spokesperson for the area, responded to questions from the Morning Sentinel about the issue, DiBlasi said he forwarded those answers to her. Then, DiBlasi said she, Soll and Heidrich met.

“We were like, ‘Oh, whoa. That’s a completely different answer than what we got in person at our (previous) meeting,’” DiBlasi said of Heidrich’s explanation of the possibility of an easement.

Now, the two sides plan to review a survey conducted by Sackett & Brake, DiBlasi said. Talks are ongoing, DiBlasi said at Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting.

DiBlasi, a former attorney whose practice included some real estate law, had previously floated the possibility of taking the property by eminent domain, but now it appears that will not be necessary. She had also ruled out any adverse possession claim, based on required criteria that she believes the town does not meet.

Town officials are still in the early stages of exploring what to do with the building, and a sale is only one possibility.

The main portion of the building — not the section that extends on to Brookfield’s property — was built in 1904. It was designed in the Romanesque Revival style by noted Lewiston architect William R. Miller, according to a nomination for the National Register of Historic Places written by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission in 1983.

The Fire Department relocated as the building was aging. Modern fire trucks just squeezed through the bay doors. The main bay was supported by dozens of beams in the basement to hold the weight of the fire trucks.

Right now, the building stores some of the town’s recreation department maintenance equipment and a fire apparatus that local technical center students use. The town still pays for utilities and insurance, totaling thousands of dollars per year.

At a Feb. 25 select board meeting, before DiBlasi heard from Brookfield about a possible easement, town officials suggested a few ideas.

Select board member Steven Govoni said it should be sold and returned to the tax rolls, as a potentially valuable waterfront property near the downtown area. If no easement were to be granted, and the town needed to remove the portion encroaching on Brookfield’s property, it would likely cost about $30,000 or $35,000, according to Govoni, who runs an engineering firm based in Skowhegan.

Select board member Amber Lambke suggested that Bryan Belliveau, the town’s director of economic and community development, study different possibilities for the building.

Paul York, the chairman of the board, said at the same meeting he spoke with fire Chief Ronnie Rodriguez, who had some ideas of what to do with the former station. York said he largely rejected them for several unspecified reasons.

Rodriguez, reached this week via telephone, declined to say what his ideas were.