An aura of mystery shrouds the city block on Portland’s eastern waterfront where Jordan’s Meats is closed and the weeds grow profusely beyond the chain link fence. It’s been two long years since the Procaccianti Group abandoned their plans to transform the site into a $110 million Emerald City-a 223-room hotel, 97 luxury condominiums and 20,000 square feet of retail space.
And so the rumors percolated. Does Procaccianti plan something smaller? Will the Jordan’s Meats plant be razed and turned into a parking lot? Put up for sale two years ago for $10 million, there may have been nibbles but no one has purchased the site. And by this time, the undeveloped industrial block-funky chic or seedy eyesore-has become an indelible part of the East End landscape.
“The site is stable and the building is secure,” asserts Alex Jaegerman, division director of the Portland’s Planning Department. “We have no issues with the site as it is-it’s not causing any heartburn just sitting there.
Behind closed doors, executives continue to talk. “Still no real news to report,” says Ralph V. Izzi Jr., marketing communications director for The Procaccianti Group. “Although we have been very close to finalizing a sale, no transaction has taken place and the property remains for sale.”
The ball is in the air-when it will drop is anyone’s guess. “What is the best way to develop the site?” ponders Bob Wexler, executive vice president, development, Procaccianti Group, affecting disappointment that his public relations executive’s quote failed to wow this reporter. “We are trying to be sensitive to the needs of the community, what the community wants and what’s best for the community.”
Across the street, the ugly litigation over the $100 million Riverwalk development is more twisted than the weeds proliferating around Jordan Meats.
The project includes a 720-space, $12 million parking garage that represents exceptional community communication. “We wanted the garage to fit in with the neighborhood and met several times with the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization and area residents and business people,” explains Drew Swenson. “We integrated almost all of their design requests and we believe it was a very successful collaborative effort to build a parking facility and have it fit well into the fabric of the neighborhood. For example, we designed and built the grand, glass-enclosed stair tower in the Southeast corner along Fore Street at the request of the residents so that it would provide a very visible and welcoming introduction to and from Munjoy Hill and Ocean Gateway,”
This parking garage is now the subject of an acrimonious lawsuit. Fred Forsley, owner of Shipyard Brewing and a partner in Riverwalk, argues that the parking garage is being built on brewery land, at Middle, Hancock and Fore Streets. The plaintiffs in his suit are Riverwalk partner Drew Swenson and Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., the Boston firm lined up to finance the Riverwalk project.
Forsley declined to be interviewed for this article; his public relations representative e-mailed the same quote from his attorney given to the Portland Press Herald. Writes George Marcus of the Portland law firm Marcus, Clegg & Mistretta: “Mr. Forsley is not in a position to comment on the allegations of the complaint because of the pending litigation. The issues raised by the complaint should not be interpreted as any lessening of Mr. Forsley’s long-standing commitment to the successful development of the Ocean Gateway area in Portland.”
Originally, the completed parking garage was to be but the first step in a nearly two-city-block project that would include 100 luxury condominium units, a five-story office building and retail shops. All but the garage are on hold indefinitely. At present, the garage and the park at the corner of Hancock and Middle are the only components to be completed-nothing else has broken ground, according to Swenson.
Meanwhile, the paint is still drying on the state-of-the-art cashierless garage that includes low-energy consumption lighting and bike racks, among other green touches. This building was the result of countless conversations with the community-in hindsight a more harmonious time, when the developers were talking a green streak about ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the garage. The City of Portland, in return, gave the developers a special zoning contract and a $5 million property tax break over 13 years.
As promised, 150 spaces were reserved for Casco Bay island residents; by mid-September, 50 spaces had been rented at a Portland-subsidized rate of $130 each.
Scaled back, small projects are going forward however. If nothing else has been clear in this article it’s what happens when the bubble bursts in an over-heated real estate market. In the last Portland Press Herald story about a project on the site of the now-destroyed Village Café, a Boston developer who in 2005 had planned to build 250 condominiums, has now scaled down to 185 condominiums slated to be reasonable priced-a subjective term, of course.