An offer from residents of two mobile home parks in Old Orchard Beach to buy the properties has been rejected by the current owner.
Residents of Old Orchard Village and Atlantic Village learned earlier this year that the owner had a pending offer of $40.4 million for the neighborhood. A state law enacted last fall gives residents a chance to form a cooperative and attempt to buy the parks themselves.
The Old Orchard residents formed the Seacoast Village Cooperative and matched the $40.4 million offer but learned Thursday that it had been rejected.
"The residents met every obligation," said Nora Gosselin with the non-profit Cooperative Development Institute, which helped the Old Orchard residents organize and submit their offer.
"This was a very large transaction; we knew it would be unique in that sense. And it's also a new law," she said.
Gosselin said that since Maine's opportunity to purchase law was enacted last fall, three mobile home communities have attempted to purchase their own parks but had their offers rejected.
The residents said they wanted to purchase the parks so they could maintain local ownership and operation, and potentially prevent large lot rent increases.
The Old Orchard Beach park transaction would have been among the largest sales for a resident-owned community in Maine, Gosselin said.
The two parks had about 370 homes. Gosselin said the park owner will now move forward with the sale in the coming weeks and months.
