Canal Plaza Renovations & New Mixed-Use Tower | Portland

It will be a very tight construction zone if this moves forward and I'm guessing that the crane would be positioned next to the garage?
 
275 tallest height in Manchester NH (City Hall Plaza) Built 1992 last tallest building built lowered per Portlander...LOL
289 tallest height in Worcester (The 6Hundred Residential Building) Built 1991 last tallest building built
790 tallest height in Boston (aka the Hancock) and at sea level Thanks for correction LOL
428 tallest height in Providence (aka Superman Bulding)
535 tallest height in Hartford (City Place I)
124 tallest height Burlington VT Decker Towers
141 tallest height Under Construction Burlington
for comparison purposes
 
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Burlington's tallest is now 141' (left tower) and is still under construction but was topped out a few months ago. The entire project is known as CityPlace and includes hotel (L) and residential (R) along with retail and dining options on the ground floors. Oh, and Manchester's tallest is City Hall Plaza at 275', let's not give them more height than they deserve. :)
 
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Downtown Burlington this past summer with CityPlace's first tower visible with yellow exterior cladding. Infinite Destinations screenshot.
 
The tallest building still in Maine is St Joseph's Church in Biddeford at 235(Steeple). The Casco comes in at 204.5 (most floors in Maine) 18, so let the games begin.. 300+ would be the winner north of Boston
 
The St Joseph's Church in Biddeford is actually not that tall and my source was a long time city employee who had access to the old blueprints. Even if it was 235', the top third of the structure is space that cannot be unoccupied and its misleading for Wikipedia to list it as Maine's tallest building.
 
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Cosakita18 said:
Word on the street from someone who works at Woodard & Curran is 30 stories and ~360' feet from ground floor to the top of the architectural cap.
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Novare patio will have great view unless they won’t be able to keep it open . I would think they’d have to make sure it wouldn’t affect that side of lot
 
There are some tall building enthusiasts that count churches but I'm just not one of them and don't fault the individuals that do. And in fairness, I never considered the 204' Immaculate Conception Church in Portland as Maine's tallest building, it has been Franklin Towers since 1969 until the completion of The Casco last year. My former girlfriend went to college at UVM so I am aware of the handsome bell tower and if it was actually located in the downtown proper I might have given it more attention. :)
 
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Portlander said:
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Bennington Battle Monument at 306' is actually the tallest "structure" in Vermont and you can take an elevator to the observation level at the 200' mark.
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The outside of the tower is great but the view stinks. When I went up we had to stay towards the inside so you were looking through double sets of slats. It caused the sight-lines to be very narrow. I don't remember when that was, but probably shortly before covid.
 
Hypothetically say this building is 340ish. From the 295 side of town do you think it will significantly stand above the spine or just slightly due to location?
 
Currently, you can see the mechanical cap of One Canal Plaza if you look hard enough while heading south on 295. If a new tower goes up right beside it you would be able to easily identify the top 12 to 15 floors depending on the final height. The downward change in elevation between the Congress Street spine and where Canal Plaza and Portland Square are located is close to 100 feet. Of course the best perspective would be when viewed from the waterfront, Casco Bay Bridge or the South Portland side of the harbor.
 
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Just for fun due to the "what if" surrounding a potential Canal Plaza tower. This photo shows the new tallest building in Halifax, NS. It was topped out in 2023 and is now completing the final stages of construction. It is known as "One 77" and is 360' tall @ 34 stories with a slender build. The footprint of the pedestal measures approximately 100' X 100' with the shaft being probably 80' X 80' which is a little larger than what can be squeezed out of the Canal Plaza lot. It does at least give us a ballpark idea of what could materialize in Portland if Mr. Soley decides to max out the height. Keep in mind that the top 35' or so has to be used for mechanical/ornamental purposes if I'm reading one of Cosakita's posts correctly. Last note, this new tower is actually located around 2 miles from downtown Halifax on the opposite side of the peninsula in a more residential part of the city.
 
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This is what 80' X 80' would look like on the 45 Union Street site. This would give the building a floorplate of about 6,500 SF.

It looks like a tight fit, but the B3 zone is quite permissible not only with height, but also setbacks and lot coverage.

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Portlander said:
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Just for fun due to the "what if" surrounding a potential Canal Plaza tower. This photo shows the new tallest building in Halifax, NS. It was topped out in 2023 and is now completing the final stages of construction. It is known as "One 77" and is 360' tall @ 34 stories with a slender build. The footprint of the pedestal measures approximately 100' X 100' with the shaft being probably 80' X 80' which is a little larger than what can be squeezed out of the Canal Plaza lot. It does at least give us a ballpark idea of what could materialize in Portland if Mr. Soley decides to max out the height. Keep in mind that the top 35' or so has to be used for mechanical/ornamental purposes if I'm reading one of Cosakita's posts correctly. Last note, this new tower is actually located around 2 miles from downtown Halifax on the opposite side of the peninsula in a more residential part of the city.
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Another example....277 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Although it's almost twice as tall as the proposed Canal Plaza tower....it has a floorplate of ~6,500 SF and the tower measures 80' X 80'

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I'm interested to see how they propose handling hotel traffic, residential traffic and the garage entrance/exit all in the one alley. Maybe they'll propose using Patton Ct for something?
 
Excellent question and I was also wondering how those issues would be handled. Parking for hotel guests and residents? Will the neighboring Fore Street garage be repurposed for use by the new tower only and can extra levels be added to it? The only land nearby to accommodate the needs for valet parking would be on the other side of Portland Square. I'm sure the developer has all of this figured out seeing that this project has been on the back burner for over 5 years now and "The Casco" was built without dedicated parking for 263 units.
 
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