Maine Medical Center Expansion | Portland

[Tom Nevers]

As seen from the Downeaster.

 

[Portlander]

Glass being installed!

 

[Portlander]

 

[PlantArch]

View attachment 28113
Glass being installed!

So that front line of steel posts is pretty permanent looking. That would give an entirely different look to the facade and feels as though they are going to be in the way of ground level amenities. Thoughts?

 

[Seanflynn78]

Yes, it looks like the steel is going right to the sidewalk/street. I am surprised the locals are not freaking out at the size of the façade. I like it as it gives a truly urban look to Maine's big city. Portland continues to be a boomtown by New England standards. Traffic in this part of town is probably going to be crazy for 12 hours of the day. Good luck finding parking for all the medical staff as I see they took down the parking garage.

 

[Portlander]

Maine Med staff parks in the new garage on St John Street and ride a shuttle back and forth. My neighbor is an emergency room nurse and has no issues with the garage and shuttle frequency.

 

[nomc]

I don't think those are permanent, I still think they'll be knocked out. They aren't coated in SFRM, but maybe they don't need to be in that location/use if they are permanent - I'm not up on the code.

 

[nomc]

Maine Med staff parks in the new garage on St John Street and ride a shuttle back and forth. My neighbor is an emergency room nurse and has no issues with the garage and shuttle frequency.View attachment 28205

Yeah, you can see this driving north on 295 - it dwarfs Mercy Hospital.

 

[Portlander]

I agree with nomc, they are providing temporary support and if not we'll have justification to initiate a lawsuit.

 

[DanielPWM19]

Now that I'm seeing the final image again, I think it should be 5 stories higher.

 

[markhb]

Now that I'm seeing the final image again, I think it should be 5 stories higher.

There are a couple of additional stories on the rear as it gets closer to the Bean building, but they are set back to avoid massive height on the streetwall. There's only so much they have need for, though; part of the spec for the expansion is that they are actually not increasing inpatient capacity; they're going to be converting semi-private rooms to private. If they had increased bed space, they would have had to go through the Certificate of Need process with the state which apparently they had no interest in doing for this project. Also, I am guessing that they wanted to maintain the existing views from the 5th floor cancer center and the 6th floor Children's Hospital (aka Barbara Bush), because definitely the patients in there shouldn't have their views reduced to ugly backs of buildings as opposed to the ballpark.

 

[TC_zoid]

I believe that originally, the 7th and 8th floors were a smallish footprint set to the back and corner of the NE end of the structure. The hospital stated that due to Covid they had to revise their expansion plans (during construction) and part of it was for a massive new area to clean instruments. I think that much of the 7th floor is for that, cleaning equipment, and probably with UV technology. It's quite a process, or according to a friend of mine who supervises the extensive building framework at the Yale New Haven Medical Center. The seventh floor now, is still set back a bit, but still, nearly as large a footprint as the floors below. The 8th will remain at the original size. One can't design anything too tall, modern, or aggressive with illustrations or the locals will have a conniption. I witnessed a resident of Munjoy Hill in this state of mind at a planning board meeting a while back, and he proceeded to argue about what makes for good design. He lives or lived in a dilapidated old house with a broken sink and garbage strewn about his front yard.

 

[Dr. StrangeHat]

They posted a time-lapse of the deconstruction of the parking garage and construction to date on their LinkedIn page. I'm sure they've shared this on other social media as well, but this is where I noticed it first.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/maine-medical-center/videos/

Edited to add: Yup, it's on their Facebook page too, posted on August 29th: https://www.facebook.com/MaineMedicalCenter

 

[TC_zoid]

Topping off ceremony yesterday. Play the video and 20 seconds in is a wide drone aerial of the progress.

https://assets.mainehealth.org/shar.../?mediaId=85E9B423-ADCA-44E4-8ED6351CC9B642FF

 

[Portlander]

Isn't there supposed to be two more smaller floors added to the top of the structure in the NE corner area? Not sure about topping off etiquette but I always thought it represented the final steel beam at the highest point of the project.

 

[TC_zoid]

Isn't there supposed to be two more smaller floors added to the top of the structure in the NE corner area? Not sure about topping off etiquette but I always thought it represented the final steel beam at the highest point of the project.

Originally, yes, that's what it was. I think it was primarily an employee lounge, and so now it looks like it will be one floor instead of two (floor 8). The 7th floor has now become a much larger one and is set back a bit (because it looks less imposing, to appease the neighbors, I guess). Covid caused them to re-think the entire disinfection process, and from what I've read this entire top floor (7) will be devoted to cleaning instruments. What other hospital in the country will have this feature? None that have just been built, anyway.

And yes, I don't think it was topped off correctly.

 

[Corey]

Maine Medical Center Construction from Saint John Street by Corey Templeton, on Flickr

 

[nomc]

Love all the glass on this one - and that the glass is held with a much thinner bezel than the other recent builds.

 

[mainejeff]

Wow...that's definitely an urban city scape! The new addition looks like it could be a new arena/civic center. I really like that new mural on the side of that building!

 

[NR2Portland]

this will be quite a building once completed. Very imposing.