McIntyre auction bidding hit $9M

Next highest bidder says he’s out

PORTSMOUTH — The bidding for the 2.1-acre Thomas J. McIntyre federal building property hit $9 million early Thursday morning, when one of the developers vying for the site posted a new high bid.

Bidder No. 1 posted the bid for the 80 Daniel St. property about 4:30 a.m., according to the General Services Administration, which owns the property and is conducting the online auction.

The previous high bid of $8.55 million was made by Bidder No. 4 on Wednesday afternoon. The new high bid automatically triggered a 24-hour extension to the bidding until about 4:30 Friday morning, according to the GSA’s rules.

Bidder No. 4 identifies himself, says he won’t bid again

GSA has not identified any of the four bidders for the property on 80 Daniel St., and won’t until it has accepted a high bid, according to GSA spokesperson Paul Hughes.

Josh Soley, the president and CEO of Maine Realty Advisors in Portland, confirmed Thursday his company is Bidder No. 4.

He also said, “I’m officially out now,” after learning of the new high $9 million bid.

“At that number, the project is still feasible, but it starts to squeeze the margins,” he said during an interview Thursday morning. “It has to make money for the investors. At $9 million it could still work, but the margins are thin.”

Soley said he knows and has spoken to all three of the other developers who have bid on the McIntyre property.

He predicted that Bidder No. 1 will ultimately succeed in his effort to acquire the property, but declined to name him.

“It’s going to be public in a matter of 24 hours,” Soley predicted.

Attempts to reach Bidder No. 1 for comment have not yet been successful.

Developer William Binnie confirmed more than a week ago that his company had bid on the McIntyre.

However, Binnie, president of the locally owned Carlisle Capital Corporation, has not posted any new bids in several days, according to the GSA’s auction website.

If Maine Realty Advisors had acquired the McIntyre property it was their intention, Soley said, to “effectively give the property back to the people.”

“The plan was to effectively chop it up, the existing building, into office condos with no exterior development,” he said.

“If someone wanted to put office downtown and own parking downtown, they could do that,” Soley said.

He acknowledged he would “have

loved” to have the opportunity to redevelop the site.

“I own Maine Realty Advisors, and we intend to open an office in Portsmouth soon,” he said. That could have been in the McIntyre if the company’s bid had been successful, he said.

The auction, which began in June, will not end until 24 hours pass without a new high bid, Hughes said.

There have now been 26 bids made for the property, which is located a stone’s throw away from Portsmouth’s popular restaurant-lined waterfront.

The city tried for the past several years to secure the McIntyre property for $1 through the government’s Historic Monument Program. GSA dropped Portsmouth from that program earlier this year when the city and its private development partner, Redgate/Kane, couldn’t agree on a redevelopment plan and they subsequently sued each other.

The existing federal building contains 107,000 square feet of gross building area, according to the GSA, with 44 indoor parking spaces and a two-tier outdoor parking lot with 91 spaces, along with eight loading bay doors.