Parts of the Bangor Mall will likely be torn down in the next couple of years to allow for redevelopment, a representative of the company said Friday.
A "large name" hotel, $500 a month studio apartments, office space and entertainment are all things that may come to the mall property in the next one to five years, said Daniel Giannini, senior legal advisor to Namdar Realty Group, which owns the Bangor Mall.
Those plans mean parts of the mall will likely be demolished, he told reporters after testifying for three hours at a hearing in Bangor District Court.
"We are very flexible in making that space something the city will be proud of," Giannini said during his testimony.
Namdar has talked with city officials about redeveloping the property, which includes possibly selling the property to the city, Giannini said. The company needs to balance making sure the property is in decent condition without investing too much money into a building that likely won't look the same after the next few years, he said.
His statements came at the end of a two-day preliminary injunction hearing after the city of Bangor sued the mall two times for various code violations, including failing to fix a broken sewer pipe, a leaking roof, large potholes and a dilapidated sign.
Judge Bruce Mallonee talked, in private, to the mall's attorney, William Gallitto III, and City Solicitor David Szewczyk after the evidence part of the hearing ended.
Fines for the violations and a ruling from Mallonee may not be the right path, Giannini said after court. The bigger picture is fixing the violations and finding an agreement for that with the city, he said.
Gallitto, the mall's attorney, declined to comment on the potential of settlement negotiations.
During his testimony, Giannini outlined the mall's attempts to find contractors to fix the code violations that led to the lawsuits. Two city employees testified about numerous potholes and eroded areas throughout the parking lot and private road, as well as trashcans collecting water from roof leaks inside the mall.
Giannini testified he has tried to be responsive about issues and work with the city but that the city's notice of ordinance violations did not provide in-depth descriptions of the violations. The pothole problems are widespread, which Namdar knows, but it did not know what the city wanted fixed, Giannini said.
"We want to be good citizens to the city of Bangor but knocking us in the head is not the way to do it," Giannini said.
The sewer issues escalated Aug. 22 when the city learned the sinkhole around a 54-inch stormwater pipe caused a break in a 10-inch sewer line and 18-inch stormwater pipe. A contractor for the mall set up a bypass -- which captures the sewage and then deposits it back into the pipes after the break -- that was operational by 7 p.m. Aug. 23, the second day of the broken pipe.
Namdar Realty Group then told the contractor to stop the bypass and that they would not pay him because they did not go through the normal bid process and there was not enough time for Namdar to find a different contractor, Giannini testified.
The city stepped in after the mall contractor left and hired a different contractor to fix the break, which was done Aug. 26.
"I knew that [Bangor] would come in and remediate the situation," Giannini testified. "We knew the city would charge us back for it, which is fine. We were willing to pay whatever the city was willing to spend ... we did not want to have an environmental disaster on our hands."
Namdar has not reached out to the city to inquire about paying for the repairs because it assumed Bangor would come to collect, Giannini said. The company will also remediate the raw sewage in the ponds, if there is any, but Giannini said he didn't smell anything when he visited the ponds on Wednesday.
Pinky, foamy sewage filled the hole during one day of the leak, Director of Water Quality Management Amanda Smith testified Thursday.
The city and Namdar agree that the 54-inch stormwater pipe needs to be replaced or repaired. It is a privately owned pipe that serves the Bangor Mall, Szewczyk said. Multiple sinkholes are forming along the pipe in areas other than where the sewer broke.
While Namdar isn't confident the pipe is fully the company's issue, it will replace the whole pipe for roughly $300,000 Giannini testified. The company may sue the neighboring property owner if Namdar decides it is not responsible for the whole pipe, he said.
Namdar received its second and third bids this week for repairing the 54-inch stormwater pipe, which means it will evaluate the offers and choose a contractor in the coming weeks, Giannini said.
Around 20 pictures of potholes and erosion -- throughout the mall's parking lot and the private road around it -- were presented during Friday's hearing. Bangor Fire Inspector George Craig testified about the size of the holes, some at least six-inches deep, and how they are full of water and now ice.
Namdar fixed Ring Road and is working on repairing other parts of the parking lot, but it is "ongoing project" when the weather allows it, Giannini testified. The company doesn't have the money to repave the whole parking lot, he said.
Namdar Realty Group owns 376 properties across 37 states. Igal Namdar, the owner of the realty group, had a net worth of $2 billion in 2021, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Repaving the whole parking lot would cost triple the value of the mall building, Giannini testified. There's about 2.6 million square feet to repave and would cost between $20 and $30 million, he said. Namdar bought the mall for $12.6 million in 2019, for about half the city's assessed value of $24.7 million.
A contractor to fix the mall's main sign was hired and paid to start work next week, Giannini testified. The sign has missing letters, pieces of a tarp covering part of it and pigeons nesting inside.
Namdar has a contractor to make roof repairs, Giannini testified. Around 50 percent of the roof repairs are already done, the mall's attorney said Thursday.
The city solicitor questioned if some of the pictures of the roof repair were from fixes in 2021, based on notations on the photos. Giannini said he didn't know what the notations meant but that the roof had repairs when he was up there on Wednesday, and the mall manager told him the repairs were recent.
Bangor has two weeks to submit written closing arguments to the judge, after which Namdar's legal counsel has two weeks to respond and then Bangor has one more week for a reply.