BRUNSWICK

A sprinkler head froze and burst Dec. 19 during a stretch of extraordinarily cold weather, draining hundreds of gallons of water into the former Building 645 at Brunswick Landing.

Once the U.S. Navy’s medical clinic, Building 645 is in transition to become the hub of Southern Maine Community College’s Midcoast Campus learning space.

But college officials took the news in stride, saying the damage could have been much worse and could have occurred at a far worse time. For example, the leak could have sprung after — rather than before — the building’s total overhaul into a learning commons and health science center, said Scott Beatty, SMCC’s dean of administration.

Located across Sewall Street from the campus’s current main building, the Orion Center, the structure stood dormant and deteriorating for several years after the Navy closed the former naval air station.

Then it sat unused for 18 more months, while Gov. Paul LePage and state legislators squabbled over balancing the state’s budget. For leverage during the political fight, LePage froze more than $4.5 million in education improvement bonds that previously had been approved by state voters and intended for use to convert the building into a multi-purpose academic and student center.

After LePage released the bonds earlier this year, SMCC resumed planning to overhaul the space.

That’s why, when Brunswick firefighters responded to alarms warning of low water pressure in the building’s fire suppression system at 4:32 p.m. on Dec. 19, the only additional damage they found was that the leaking water had made soggy a mess that already existed.

It’s a small blessing, Beatty said.

“Fortunately, it was nothing too dramatic because we’re about to start totally gutting the building for renovation,” he added. “The heating systems still work, but temperatures were turned way down because nobody was going to be working in there during the holidays. Normally we keep the buildings somewhere in the 70s. But the (heating) system was turned down to maintain temperatures in the 40s for the holiday break, and when you do that, you get some cold spots.”

Work on the space is scheduled to resume after New Year’s Day.

jtleonard@timesrecord.com