WESTBROOK – A Hindu temple has purchased the former Unitarian Universalist Church of Westbrook building at 719 Main St., making it the second Hindu temple in Maine.

Westbrook Housing sold the 124-year-old building for $75,000 to Maine Hindu Temple on Dec. 21, Susan Eldridge, interim executive director of the housing authority, said on Wednesday.

With intention of converting it to a cultural center, the housing authority had acquired the building from the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church in Portland for $1 last year.

Sandeep Gandra of South Portland, a member of the Hindu temple’s board, said Maine Hindu Temple would utilize the building for worship services. The Hindu temple owns the building outright.

“It’s all paid for,” Gandra said.

Gandra said community members raised about $35,000 in four days, bolstering its funds to buy the building.

“Every penny was donated by community members,” Gandra said.

Dan Glover of Westbrook, a board member of the former Westbrook church group, was surprised to hear that the building was acquired for $75,000.

“It sounds like a good deal for them,” Glover said.

Glover said the building was constructed in 1888. The Westbrook church group, which had a dwindling congregation, had last met there in 2010.

The housing authority previously determined that the building needed a sprinkler system, boiler and new roof.

“The new owners realized that the building needed a lot of work,” Eldridge said.

Glover said the furnace was installed in the 1990s, as was aluminum siding. Glover believed the roof needs attention.

“For its age, though, it was in pretty good shape,” Glover said about the historic church.

Gandra agreed that there’s some required work.

But, he said, “I think it’s a pretty good building.”

According to the city’s Assessing Department, the total assessed value of the church building, an outbuilding and the one-third acre lot is $456,400. The building is assessed for $320,000; land, $135,200; and the outbuilding, $1,100.

It’s unclear when Hindu services would begin in the former church, where a long-ago noted minister, the Rev. Harry Townsend, served as pastor.

According to Rajan Zed, a nationally recognized statesman in the Hindu faith, there are an estimated 2,000 people of the Hindu religion in Maine, and the number is reportedly growing.

The sale marks the second Hindu temple in Maine. A small, former Unitarian Universalist Church situated on the Scarborough-Buxton town line also was converted to a Hindu temple.

In September 2011 Westbrook Housing took over the church building with the intent to turn it into a cultural center, as well as an activity center for senior citizens. But Presumpscot Commons, which Westbrook Housing renovated into senior housing, had a gymnasium and a few other rooms that remained the property of the Westbrook Recreation Department.

Just two months after getting the Main Street church building, the department donated the space in Presumpscot Commons to Westbrook Housing, which then became the senior activity center.

Eldridge said the housing authority’s costs invested in the church building totaled about $30,000 including expenses for legal work, repair and heating oil. She said the remaining balance from the sale price would be transferred to its fundraising corporation, Westbrook Services Corp., to be used for a senior lifestyle center that is being developed at the gym on Foster Street.

The housing authority retained a parcel of the church land valued at about $57,000. The parcel is on Cloudman Street and is about the size of a house lot, Eldridge said.

“When the church was just on the open market, we had little response as there was so much work to be done; therefore, our goal was to sell to a nonprofit that actually had or could secure the funds necessary to bring this beautiful church back into good condition. We were very conscious of the end result of this Main Street parcel/building,” Eldridge said.