photo/Chris Busby

This month’s dump comes from the farthest northern point of The Bollard’s circulation area: the distant and exotic city of Bath. I’ve driven by this eyesore, located just off Route 1, every month for the past three years, and finally pulled over to investigate last month.

Turns out this property is being offered for sale in conjunction with an abandoned Citgo station next door and another building nearby occupied by U.S. Cellular. The price: $595,000.  The listing by Gerard Commercial Properties suggests that the dump, a “dilapidated former car wash,” be demolished to create more parking. An overgrown “drive thru” to nowhere runs between the former car wash and gas station.

I wanted to break the news of this dump’s fate, but The Bollard’s been scooped by the Times Record (the good folks who print this publication at their Brunswick facility). In May, reporter Seth Koenig wrote that Bath officials intend to use Environmental Protection Agency funds provided for the cleanup of brownfields to demolish the boxy structure and decontaminate the site, where gas pumps predated the car wash.

City Manager Bill Giroux’s announcement of the pending demo elicited applause from those in attendance at the City Council meeting, Koenig reported.

The article also noted that this dump and the empty gas station prompted Bath councilors last fall to consider passing a law to mandate improvements to run-down properties, especially those along the Route 1 gateway into the city. Councilors ultimately scrapped the idea when questions about the enforceability of the ordinance were raised.

The shuttered car wash is over 40 years old. It’s been closed for at least eight years, said Danny Gilmore of Gilmore’s Sea Foods, a fish market and take-out joint nearby. The dump’s facade could be considered art in some circles — a patchwork of particle boards, planks and shingles that call to mind the work of Robert Rauschenberg. The rest of the property, not so much.

— Chris Busby