CAMDEN — It’s all fine and good to own a 170-foot smokestack that is a community landmark, but when its age begins to show and edges fray, the question is posed: Should it come down?

Matt Orne, of Camden, has been thinking about the smokestack since he purchased parts of the Knox Mill in 2011. A businessman, he sees little sense in spending money on a deteriorating structure without prospect of a return.

“I can’t afford to spend more than $125,000 to restore something I don’t need,” he said.

It is an assessment previous Knox Mill owners have shared.

But Orne has found a use for the smokestack and its restoration will begin in September. The work will be primarily cosmetic because he learned last month, following an extensive inspection by the Chicago-based Bednash Company, that the chimney is structurally sound. Its design and and original workmanship was good, and with repairs, it will be ready for a new incarnation — housing for cellular antennas and other technology.

“There are no structural issues,” said Orne.

While an application has yet to be filed with the town, plans call for six panel antennas, two hybrid cables, six remote radio units and one dish to be installed on the stack, bringing more high-speed Internet to the downtown and increased competition to the local cellular phone market. 

Camden’s Wireless Telecommunications Facility Siting Ordinance, adopted in 2001, allows locating wireless, cellular and radio technology in existing structures, contingent on planning board approval. To date, the Brace Building in downtown Camden has wireless and cellular equipment on its roof, and the First Congregational Church has wireless equipment installed in its steeple on Elm Street.

The deal with the Knox Mill stack has yet to be signed, and the interested cellular companies who will feed off the antennas there have yet to be identified, but Northeast Wireless Network, based in Falmouth and New Hampshire, is the entity that would lease the smokestack and build out its network there. 

According to the company, Northeast Wireless “develops networks and serves as a wholesale network operator in other under-served rural markets in Maine and New Hampshire. By developing and deploying shared-access wholesale networks, Northeast Wireless provides cellular operators with cost-effective coverage by combining multiple technology types. Northeast Wireless is deploying a HSPA+ 4G network utilizing the most advanced, scalable microwave backhaul supported by fiber networks.”

Orne estimates he will be investing approximately $150,000 into the chimney’s overhaul, work that will probably take a month, he said.

Repairs are anticipated to begin in early September by Gilbraltar Chimney International, of Tonawanda, New York.

It is specialized restoration, but the advantage lies in the fact that Bednash Consulting, Inc., the company that assessed the condition of the smokestack in June, obtained the original blueprints for the smokestack. How Bednash came by those designs, drawn in 1933, is is a mystery to Orne and Blaine Buck, who oversaw the Knox Mill when MBNA owned it. But it indicates how proprietary the historic industrial smokestack business can be.

“We hired a company out of Chicago to do the engineering, and the guy showed up with the original drawings of the smokestack,” said Orne. “He wouldn’t tell me where he got them. Only a handful of companies in the north do this kind of work. And old industrial smokestacks are hard to put equipment on because they don’t have the original blueprints.”

Bednash was in Camden June 3, scaling the stack inside and out, inspecting the concrete and rebar.

“A visual inspection of the chimney exterior was performed from grade and a crane suspended mancage,” the company wrote in a subsequent report. “In three quadrants for the full height, the condition of the concrete was visually inspected and hammer-tested for soundness. Defects and other areas of concern, such as cracks, spalled areas, exposed rebar, etc., were identified and photographed.”

The inspection also continued inside the stack, with the use of the mancage.

The chimney has been a fixture in Camden since its construction in 1933. The Knox Mill was built in the mid-1800s, and joined four or five other woolen mills along the lower portion of the Megunticook River, before it spills into Camden Harbor.

The Knox Mill, however, was the biggest, and according to some accounts, half of Camden’s population worked in it at one point in time. 

In 1988, it closed its doors, and the mill stood vacant for several years before the credit card bank MBNA bought the real estate and converted the industrial space to offices. An American flag was painted atop the stack’s upper section, and the chimney was periodically painted. MBNA spent close to $90,000 alone scraping all the old paint off of it.

When Bank of America acquired MBNA and divested its Camden properties in 2005, the mill began to deteriorate. The property’s low point came when it sat for two years, 2008-2010, under bank ownership following default of Knox Mill Properties LLC, whose principals were Walter Skayhan, Stephen Geppi and Richard Pineau, of Baltimore.  The three had purchased the mill from the bank, and had grand visions of condominium development the entire complex.

The mill then fell under ownership of the Pennsylvania bank PNC. And all along, the mill owners grappled with how to keep the smokestack standing.

In 2008, the town said no, and then eventually yes, to the idea of using the chimney as a climbing wall for training outdoor enthusiasts — one business owner’s attempt to make money from the structure. That plan never panned out and paint from the stack continued to chip and fall to the ground below. 

In March 2011, Orne acquired buildings 3, 4 and 5 of the Knox Mill complex on 4.5 acres. Included in that purchase was the smokestack. Orne’s main goal that year was to simply stabilize the mill.

Since then, he has completely filled the Knox Mill with businesses and professionals, continuously restoring and repairing systems and the structure itself. Still, the smokestack has stood sentry, but without a function.

Earlier this winter, Orne was in Falmouth at Northeast Wireless, which is a tenant in an office building he owns there. Chatting with the principals, they mentioned how poor cellular phone reception is in Camden Harbor. That sparked the idea in Orne’s mind about using the smokestack to enhance cellular coverage in downtown Camden. From there, the conversation grew, eventually resulting in the commission of Bednash consultants heading east to Camden and assess the chimney.

The advantage of the smokestack for cellular and wireless technology is its strategically located height.

“It is high enough to get into inner areas,” Orne said.

Antennas on the chimney are to be painted to blend in with existing structure.

”They will be flush-mounted and stick out a little, but will not be unsightly,” he said.

In its report, Bednash said the concrete chimney has the strength to withstand the added external loads of antennas. That assessment, however, is contingent on the stack getting repaired.

It is constructed with poured reinforced concrete. Over the years, the paint has attracted moisture, which froze, and then popped out areas of concrete. Much of that which needs repair is above the 55-foot mark on the chimney.

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Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657