SOUTH PORTLAND – Cafua Management Co., a Massachusetts-based developer of Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants, has completed its purchase of the former St. John the Evangelist Church, at 611 Main St. in South Portland.

However, while Cafua has announced plans to tear down the church and replace it with a Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant, Assistant City Manager Jon Jennings says that may not happen, as he continues to negotiate leasing to Cafua a city-owned lot farther up Main Street, at the corner of Westbrook Street, where routes 1 and 9 intersect.

“We have been in talks with them for some time and they have said they actually would prefer the property at the corner of Main and Westbrook,” said Jennings on Friday, “but they were in a position where they more or less had to proceed with their purchase of the church property.”

Jennings said as part of the negotiations with Cafua, the city is working to get a third-party appraisal of its 2.33-acre vacant lot, which is assessed at $135,900.

“Obviously, that’s the first step to find out where we are,” he said.

Calls to Cafua’s Methuen, Mass., office were not returned by The Current’s deadline.

According to paperwork signed by former Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland Richard Malone on Dec. 11 and filed with the Cumberland County Registry of Deeds on Dec. 18, the sale is actually to CRT LXXIV, a limited liability corporation based out of a Sanford post office box.

Malone, named bishop of the Portland Diocese in 2004, was installed as bishop of Buffalo, N.Y., in August 2012 and has since served as apostolic administrator in Portland. Pope Francis appointed his successor in Maine, Robert Deeley, as bishop of the Diocese of Portland on Dec. 18. He will be formally installed in a mass scheduled for Feb. 14.

CRT LXXIV is a property holding company for Cafua created on July 25 with Eugene H. Gaudette as its registered agent. Gaudette, an attorney, also is the registered agent and clerk for Cafua Management and a web of related realty trusts and Dunkin’ Donut franchise companies across New York and New England.

A deed restriction attached to the property by the church prevents Cafua or future owners from using the site for activities “in any way” related to performing abortions or offering abortion counseling services, selling or distributing pornography, or engaging in any other “erotic displays or activities.”

Cafua operates a Dunkin’ Donuts at 633 Main, on property adjacent to the city lot owned by Jean and Tracy Ginn. In June, the company signed a purchase and sale agreement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, which had announced plans to close St. John’s due to declining enrollment. A final Mass at the church, which was built in 1940, was celebrated on Sept. 11.

As in Augusta, where Cafua recently won Planning Board approval to close an outdated Dunkin’ store on Sewell Street and open a modernized site at 22 Western Ave., plans in South Portland were to close the Dunkin’ on the Ginn lot and move up Main Street to the St. John property.

The City Council met behind closed doors to discuss the development in a July 22 executive session, as rumors of the impending sale spread through the residential Thornton Heights neighborhood around St. John’s. Rumor became fact on Nov. 21, when representatives from Cafua met with 10 abutting property owners of the church.

According to Thirlmere Avenue resident Joyce Mendoza, who hosted the neighborhood meeting, Cafua unveiled drawings of “a full-service Dunkin Donuts restaurant with a drive-through, open 17-hours per day.”

Within days of that meeting, residents organized as the Thornton Heights Neighborhood Association and launched a letter-writing drive aimed at getting the city to swap its vacant lot for the church property, as a way to both preserve the church building and retain the peace and quite of the surrounding neighborhood.

“Demolition of a community icon and construction of a fast-food business is not a good fit for this neighborhood,” said Brian Frost, another resident of Thirlmere Avenue. “Property values and quality of life would decline, while the only beneficiary would be an out-of-state franchisee.”

At a Dec. 9 council workshop, City Manager Jim Gailey said the city could not interject itself into the private sale of the church. However, he said, the city was interested in leasing Cafua its corner lot, which was once a playground for Sawyer Elementary School and is now nominally a city park, although lack of use by the public makes it, for all intents and purposes, a vacant lot.

“Staff does not see a lot of value in this 2.33 acres,” he said. “Maintenance of this parcel exceeds what the use is. It’s a very dangerous park because it’s bounded by two busy roads.”

At the Dec. 9 meeting, city councilors publicly endorsed the plan to negotiate with Cafua, noting that a fast-food franchise at the corner of Main and Thirlmere seemed inconsistent with existing plans to remake Route 1 east of Westbrook Street as a “complete street,” with narrowed travel lanes, wider sidewalks, landscaped esplanades, new streetlights, on-street parking and bicycle lanes, in order to mimic the feel of a traditional village setting. Everyone would be better served, they agreed, if the Dunkin’ stayed closer to the high-traffic area where routes 1 and 9 meet.

One wrinkle to the lease deal is that the neighboring Congregation Bet Ha’am synagogue has a pair of easements on the corner lot, one for overflow parking and one for its reflection garden, obtained when it bought the old Sawyer School for use as its temple.

On Dec. 17, Jennings met with Kris Dorer, executive director of Bet Ha’am, and other synagogue board members.

“We just wanted to make sure they were aware of everything that was going on,” said Jennings. “They were terrific to talk with and just want to be kept apprised.”

While some councilors have raised the idea of selling Bet Ha’am that portion of the city lot on which they retain easements, Jennings said that didn’t come up at last week’s introductory talk.

“Really, the discussion was more about how, if the city does go forward with Cafua, they and Bet Ha’am can work together,” said Jennings. “They do need part of that lot for parking on their high holidays and for various other events they put on.”

According to Gailey, Cafua has some interest in building a corporate office for its Maine operations on the city lot, which would likely shield the synagogue from the fast-food franchise. Whether that happens or not, Jennings stressed that the city only wants to maintain the more residential section of Main Street, keeping the Dunkin’ Donuts closer to its current location. The plan, he said, is not to throw Bet Ha’am under the bus by enticing Cafua to build next to them, rather than destroy St. John’s.

“Our goal here is not to save a Catholic church. Our goal is to preserve the integrity of a neighborhood,” said Jennings. “Of course the members of the neighborhood group are anxious, but we are moving as quickly as we can to resolve this situation.

“I will say that Cafua has been very good to work with,” said Jennings. “We’re trying to expedite all of this, it’s just that getting the appraisal on our land and then sitting down to negotiate a lease is difficult right now as we are into the holidays, when everyone is taking vacations.”

Waiting in the wings for St. John’s, if Cafua accepts the city offer and no longer has need of the church property, is the Independent Order of Odd Fellows’ Unity Lodge in Portland.

“When we found out St. John’s was going to close through an inside tip, we kept waiting for the property to be for sale on the real estate market,” said Cole Street resident and Odd Fellow Fred Stuart. “But it never was. It was a quiet deal.

“We want to take the building and leave it as it is. We don’t want to change anything,” said Stuart. “We want it to stay intact.”

If successful in buying the property, the Odd Fellows would use the church for functions such as weddings and funerals, and possibly rent it out to the public, said Stuart. They also would put a new roof on the old St. John’s school and use that building as a lodge hall. Use of the parsonage is uncertain, said Stuart, but it would not be torn down. A wooded area next to the church would be maintained for public use, he said.

Another Odd Fellow and South Portland resident, Ralph Trynor, said his group also is willing to offer space rent free to the South Portland Food Cupboard, which recently relocated from St. John’s to new digs on Thadeus Street. The one fly in the ointment is a fear that Cafua may try to flip the church for a profit, which could put it beyond the Odd Fellows’ resources. What becomes of St. John’s then is anybody’s guess.

“If the deal doesn’t work out with the [Odd Fellow’s] lodge, that parcel could be sold to anyone again and we could be right back here,” said City Councilor Maxine Beecher. “I don’t know if there’s any way of working into this process some way that we know what’s actually going to happen with the church before we actually make the lease.”

“There is some risk here involved in this whole scenario,” said Mayor Jerry Jalbert. “In trying to solve one issue, we may create another.”