JAY — As directors of the Jay Community Development Corp., selectpersons voted Monday night to sign a document pertaining to a lease extension for McDonald’s Corp. at Jay Plaza.

The document is a agreement that lays out certain rights of the tenant, the landlord and other third parties, such as the landlord’s lender or a purchaser of the property, according to www.alllaw.com.

The town bought the majority of the 65-acre parcel in the Jay Community Development Park off Route 4 on both sides of the railroad bed in 1976 through the Farmers Home Administration.

The parking lot was created with a grant from the federal Economic Development Administration. Robert Bahre of Oxford also bought a 3-acre parcel and donated it to the town for the project, according to Sun Journal archives and Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere.

In 1978, the town deeded the property to the Jay Community Development Corp. The group entered into a 99-year lease with Bahre and his wife, Sandra, trustees of Jay Realty Trust in early 1980, to develop the park.

The plaza now hosts businesses, including Hannaford, Androscoggin Bank, Dollar Tree and McDonald’s.

Robert Bahre and McDonald’s representatives entered into an agreement in July to extend the ground lease for McDonald’s until Nov. 20, 2028. The term of the lease includes an additional collective total of 20 years that the lease can be extended. The initial lease is dated 1983.

As part of the agreement, McDonald’s Corp. requested the Jay Community Development Corp. to sign an agreement that protects the company.

The terms agreed to by the town include:

• Not suing McDonald’s for any violation of the lease between the town and Bahre.

• To stand in Bahre’s position as lessor under the same terms of the Bahre/McDonald’s lease if the lease between the town and Bahre terminates before the lease expires.

The town’s lawyer did not feel any of the items in the agreement were “terribly risky” to the town, assuming it would want McDonald’s to stay on as a tenant, according to LaFreniere’s memo to the board.

The lawyer also said she did not see any reason why the board must sign the agreement, LaFreniere wrote.

“Since the lease between Mr. Bahre and McDonald’s has already been extended, it was not contingent upon the (Development Corp.) agreeing to the subordination agreement,” she wrote. 

The lawyer also did not think failure or refusal to sign the agreement would jeopardize the lease that had already been signed, according to LaFreniere.

dperry@sunmediagroup.net