It takes a little imagination to conjure this picture of imminent change on Portland’s Eastern Waterfront: In the past month, in a somewhat sleepy, largely neglected stretch of town — east of the Old Port and west of Munjoy Hill — developers with visionary dreams have announced plans to pour millions of dollars, not to mention tons of concrete, into dramatically changing the neighborhood. Granted, Portland’s urban planners have spent years laying the foundation for neighborhood change, but the dominoes of this story really started tumbling, with one bit of news after another, in the past month.
“If you stand on India Street and walk in the circle you can start to imagine a city growing up around all this under-utilized property,” muses Bill Needelman, senior planner for Portland.
Out of the dirt parking lots sprawling within sight of Shipyard Brewery, the $75 million Riverwalk project hopes to rise, transforming the landscape by refurbishing the Grand Trunk Building into a 50-room boutique hotel, building 75 luxury condominiums a-gleaming with water-view windows and a 750-car garage designed to delicately address both the wishes of the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Association and the tax-increment financing requirements of Portland’s City Council. Riverwalk also enjoys the option to buy the Breakaway Tavern at India and Fore streets, where the developers hope to build a 25,000-square-foot, totally green-designed office building.
“This is Portland’s way of counteracting urban sprawl,” explains Needelman. “You can live here, work here, shop and recreate here — and never get into your car.”
The City of Portland Planning Office struggled for years to develop “A Master Plan for Redevelopment of the Eastern Waterfront,” released with amendments last October. The preamble of the fat, full report acknowledges the mission: “The challenge is to develop the marine passenger industry and to re-develop the underutilized uplands without negatively impacting the existing and future residential neighborhoods.”
An extended Commercial Street will stretch northeast while Hancock Street will reach south, as a new city grid is put into place. Also within an optimistically, early-2007 timetable, the entire city block where Jordan’s Meats once processed sausage will undergo a total metamorphosis. ME I Limited Partnership, a venture bringing together the Liberty Companies of South Portland and The Procaccianti Group, a hotel developer based in Cranston, R.I., have proposed razing the meat-processing plant and erect in its stead a $100 million, six-story Westin Hotel, complete with 75 condominiums, an upscale restaurant, conference facilities and parking garage. Then a few blocks away, the owners of the two-acre Village Café property, on Newbury Street, where families have been dining on lasagna for decades, have sold their stake to Boston-based GFI Residential, who plan a $45 million development and promise housing that will be, it says, “affordable” to people who work and live in Portland.
Drew Swenson, co-developer of Riverwalk with Fred Forsley of Shipyard Brewery, likes to imagine sidewalks filled with pedestrians: “People want to be out, walking their dogs, strolling their babies.”
On the other hand, Christina Feller, vocal secretary of the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Association’s board, believes strongly while all this development will surely bring Portland into the 21st century, she’s staunch about the importance of locally owned businesses. “If this really becomes a tony area, it won’t be long before we have a Gucci and a Tiffany’s,” worries Feller.
Then there’s Ocean Gateway, Portland’s new cruise ship terminal, which reminds us that real estate investments of this magnitude depend on the economy. Slated to sprawl between the intersection of Franklin Arterial and Commercial Street, Ocean Gateway passed the City Planning Board but lately has gotten mired in finding contractors who can build the project within budget. Last April the Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) and the City of Portland found it necessary to reject all bids for the project because even the lowest exceeded funding for the project by $4.5 million. Now DOT has switched gears from the accept-reject mode of bidding, where there was not room for legitimate negotiating to something called the “design-build bids” approach, which means if you propose a design, you’d better have a cost-effective idea of how to build it. “Contractors will develop proposals that meet the project specifications and will then submit bids for actually constructing the project, utilizing the cost-savings they have proposed,” explains DOT Commissioner David Cole.
Although Ocean Gateway appears to be the linchpin to all this development, if the project lags in state financing, there’s already $2 million from the City of Portland and a half-million dollar grant from the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development – these funds are in place and could be used for roadwork, including the extension of Hancock and Commercial, streetscapes, sidewalks, trees, lighting,” says Larry Mead, the department’s assistant director for Portland.
“I know we’re not going to be building in a mud bowl, even if Ocean Gateway is delayed,” asserts Drew Swenson. Indeed, the City of Portland has already secured that portion of Ocean Gateway funding that will pave the way for extended Commercial and Hancock Streets, new sidewalks and landscaping.