83 Middle St | CHOM Affordable Housing | Portland

What do expect, affordable housing tight budget,no money. Just like the ugly green building down the Street built by PHA.
 
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Affordable housing at its best. Promise a big building, end up with a disappointment. If I was the city, I would hold them to the original design. If you cant built it, don't propose it.
 
I guess I didn't realize the orange bits were actually brick. Maybe that changed? The Franklin side is so uninspired, I hope the Middle St frontage saves it.
 
lunardinosaur said:
Perhaps they were trying to tie the look of the building into the concept of the working waterfront, by designing it to look like a big shipping container.
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"Shipping Container Chic" seems to be the design que du jour for a good majority of recent developments throughout the country.
 
I do my best to understand that this is a senior affordable housing project and CHOM is operating on razor thin margins and a very tight budget in an inflationary economy....but that facade truly looks terrible, especially when you compare and contrast it with surrounding buildings. Maybe the brick facade on Middle St. and some architectural accents will help but... what's that expression about lipstick and pigs???
 
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This won't age well. And it looks like crap facing Franklin.

If they ever realign Franklin and open space for development, maybe they can plant some trees to mask this ugly folly.

They should have made the facade face Franklin instead.
 
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mainejeff said:
It looks like it belongs in a warehouse district.
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It looks like the Bissell warehouse.

Cosakita18 said:
I do my best to understand that this is a senior affordable housing project and CHOM is operating on razor thin margins and a very tight budget in an inflationary economy....but that facade truly looks terrible, especially when you compare and contrast it with surrounding buildings. Maybe the brick facade on Middle St. and some architectural accents will help but... what's that expression about lipstick and pigs???
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It looks like the whole Hampshire St side is brick too, which is just annoying. Brick accents, ok, but one side is a shipping container, the other side is brick because why??
 
Also not loving the Franklin Street side of this one. It's not that much different from CWS's (https://www.cwsarch.com/) other housing development nearby like 409 Cumberland and 58 Boyd Street but at least those had a tiny bit more visual interest.
 
Cosakita18 said:
I think in pretty much any instance, retrofitting new levels onto an inhabited building would be more costly than building it in one phase, even if building materials were substantially cheaper.

I think we're left with a 4 story building unfortunately.
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New here, so I'll apologize if I err in forum protocol. Renderings and limited photographs I have seen make it appear that a tenant of Phoenix Flats, on the right floor, could reach out the window, if they opened, and do bank business. Is that your impression? As it is, I find the building design to be without soul; an unfair assessment without being on site.
 
J. Wrighten said:
New here, so I'll apologize if I err in forum protocol. Renderings and limited photographs I have seen make it appear that a tenant of Phoenix Flats, on the right floor, could reach out the window, if they opened, and do bank business. Is that your impression? As it is, I find the building design to be without soul; an unfair assessment without being on site.
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This building is an embarrassment, especially in such a high profile location. We get exactly as much as we demand.
 
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