Court rejects Calvary Chapel appeal in Belfast Hutchinson Center dispute

1st Circuit Rejects Church's Appeal in Dispute Over Belfast Property Sale

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has turned down an appeal from an evangelical church that has been battling the University of Maine System over a Belfast property it tried to purchase.

Calvary Chapel Belfast and the UMaine System have been entangled in litigation since November 2024, when the university system rescinded its earlier decision to sell the Hutchinson Center to the church. The church had asked courts to step in and block the system from negotiating a sale with another bidder. A federal judge refused those emergency requests in 2025, ruling that Calvary Chapel had failed to show evidence of religious bias or any flaw in the bidding process that discriminated against it on religious grounds.

Calvary Chapel appealed those rulings in May 2025. In an opinion issued Tuesday, the 1st Circuit addressed only the church's requests for emergency court intervention. The underlying case now heads back to the U.S. District Court of Maine, where a judge will set a schedule for discovery and trial.

The Hutchinson Center, a building in Belfast, was put up for sale in 2024, and Calvary Chapel was among several entities that submitted bids. Word that the church had been selected as the winning applicant sparked community pushback, and two other bidders challenged the outcome, alleging the process lacked transparency.

In September 2024, the UMaine System announced it was reopening the bidding after identifying a procedural error in how proposals were assessed — specifically, the failure to account for an internet network hub housed in the building that served nearby educational and community facilities.

When the second round of bidding concluded, Waldo Community Action Partners emerged as the winner, having submitted a higher offer than the church.

Calvary Chapel has maintained throughout the legal fight that the UMaine System yielded to outside pressure and complaints about the church's religious teachings, and that the decision to restart the bidding was improper.

The university system has denied those allegations in both court filings and public remarks. Ryan Low, the system's vice chancellor of finance and administration, testified in federal court that "the one and only ground upon which" he rescinded the original sale was "cost savings."

In its Tuesday ruling, the appellate court affirmed that District Judge Stacey Neumann had credited that testimony and rejected Calvary Chapel's claims that Neumann made a legal error.

"The district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Calvary's motion for a preliminary injunction because it applied the appropriate legal standards and made no clear error in its factual determination that the University's decisions were not tainted by religious bias," Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez wrote in the 1st Circuit's opinion.

UMaine System spokesperson Samantha Warren said in a statement Wednesday that the latest ruling reflects well on the university's handling of the sale. "Yet again, the Court has upheld that the transparent, competitive process through which we are selling the Hutchinson Center has offered fair opportunity to all parties," Warren said. "This includes those parties that may be disappointed by our decision to ultimately award the right to negotiate sale terms and conditions to a local community organization that offered nearly double the purchase price of any other bidder and well above the appraised value."

Daniel Schmid, an attorney with Liberty Counsel representing Calvary Chapel, said Wednesday he disagreed with the 1st Circuit's decision and argued that the UMaine System "acted upon the intent of the community animus" against his client.

Schmid said he is looking forward to the discovery process in district court and expressed confidence that records and testimony would reveal "that there's more to this story than just a guy who thought there were cost savings."

"Everyone knows what happened here, we're just turning a blind eye to it," Schmid said.

The case will now proceed in the U.S. District Court of Maine, where a scheduling order for discovery and trial is expected to follow.