Portland, ME - New Construction Continued

Still think the fenced in private little park is lame and will be stark and empty during winter months. The building"s best profile is from Franklin Street and I would have preferred a few more floors at this location.
 
I'm wondering if this announcement by Vets First Choice will mean anything for their proposed new headquarters in Portland. We're talking about a massive company here, which would seem to open the door to a signature office tower, however it was also mentioned that a new building might include lab or distribution space, which sounds like it would lend itself more to a long and low structure.

https://www.pressherald.com/2018/04/23/vets-first-choice-to-become-maines-newest-public-company/
 
Max said:
I'm wondering if this announcement by Vets First Choice will mean anything for their proposed new headquarters in Portland. We're talking about a massive company here, which would seem to open the door to a signature office tower, however it was also mentioned that a new building might include lab or distribution space, which sounds like it would lend itself more to a long and low structure.

https://www.pressherald.com/2018/04/23/vets-first-choice-to-become-maines-newest-public-company/
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I'd love to see them go downtown, but I have a sneaking suspicion they'll end up here:

https://www.pressherald.com/2018/04/24/portland-seeking-bids-for-technology-park-development/

Henry Schein's Animal Health division has operations all over the country, so I don't think we'll see a massive influx of employees in Portland with this merger, at least not right away.
 
Maybe corporate/administrative needs could be located downtown at the Top of Old Port property or the Portland Square parcels. Development/lab/distribution could be located at the Portland Technology Park which is looking for new tenants and would keep all functions inside Portland city limits. Then they can utilize FedEx at PWM (domestic) and the container pier (international) for their shipping needs.
 
I guess it depends on how they define "on peninsula" I can't think of a single site on what we would think of as "the peninsula" that would be suitable for a distribution center of any size...and I can't imagine that they would plan to build two separate facilities in the city, that's extremely cost ineffective. The original MaineBiz article a few months ago said that facility would cost roughly $20 million , which would put it in about the same ballpark as WEX's new building.

But, there are other intangible factors. In 2018, a company that wants to market itself to skilled workers in a tight labor market would surely see the benefit and having an attractive office in the middle of Portland's vibrant downtown... As opposed to a bland Office Park out by the turnpike
 
Interesting. According to their preliminary plans it looks like they're proposing a pretty massive transformation:

https://org.salsalabs.com/o/2436/images/Cover Letter-Project Summary.pdf

It looks like they're proposing to make the current site mostly hotel/office/retail space while moving the majority of brewing production elsewhere in Portland.

They included a preliminary image of what a hotel could look like on this block. The amount of new hotel rooms being proposed in this town is getting almost comical.

Newbury%20Shipyard.png
 
Max said:
Interesting. According to their preliminary plans it looks like they're proposing a pretty massive transformation:

https://org.salsalabs.com/o/2436/images/Cover Letter-Project Summary.pdf

It looks like they're proposing to make the current site mostly hotel/office/retail space while moving the majority of brewing production elsewhere in Portland.

They included a preliminary image of what a hotel could look like on this block. The amount of new hotel rooms being proposed in this town is getting almost comical.

Newbury%20Shipyard.png
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Agreed, we must be well over market saturation for hotel rooms at this point. If this were built it would be there would be 6 hotels just between Franklin and Portland foreside (counting the new extended stay hotel and the West elm hotel both in the works) not to mention 4 more along the commerical St corridor between Franklin and Thompson's point

Notice how it includes 60,000 sf of office and 60,000 SF of "specialty pharmacy" could this be the new HQ for vets first choice???
 
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Vets First is not going to be big enough to fill a new downtown tower. Sure, they bought Henry Schein's Animal Health division, but that division is based in Ohio and those employees are staying right there. Both VFC and HSAH have employees all over the country, and there wouldn't be any need or justification to consolidate everyone to Portland.

This spot seems logical for their current size, number of Portland area employees and growth projections for 10 years. Beyond that perhaps they could look to fill a new downtown tower, but not in the near future.
 
At 60K square feet, the office component of this project will be about 3/5ths the size of the WEX building going up a block away (which is 100K SF). 1 City Center has about 200,000 SF of office space, by way of comparison.
 
Seriously, did Randy Billings, while writing this article about the "development storm", look for the most clueless dipshits in town for these comments???

Courtesy of the Press Herald:

‘DOESN’T LOOK LIKE PORTLAND’

The rapid change is being noticed and felt by local residents.

“It doesn’t look like Portland anymore,” said East End resident Diane Russell, who was strolling along India Street shortly before noon Tuesday.

Mountfort Street resident Alicia Laudermilk said she grew up in the neighborhood and returned three years ago after spending some time living in Windham.

“I remember when the Village Cafe was there and there weren’t a lot of buildings,” said Laudermilk, 34, who was walking with her 4-year-old son, Isaac, near the corner of Newbury and Hancock streets.

WTF? I swear to god these morons are not with it! I think ole' Diane R. and Alicia L. would prefer parking lots and urban decay/blight, judging by their ignorant responses. Had they put some time and THOUGHT into their comments, I don't think they would have been so negative as they were. It's because of short sited, ignorant jackass' like this that many cities and towns in our area are so hard to invest and develop in. Both of these dopes, including the articles' author, can take their sad sewage and move someplace else (go to Manchester, NH - there isn't shit going on there!)
 
SHAZBAT73 said:
Seriously, did Randy Billings, while writing this article about the "development storm", look for the most clueless dipshits in town for these comments???

Courtesy of the Press Herald:

‘DOESN’T LOOK LIKE PORTLAND’

The rapid change is being noticed and felt by local residents.

“It doesn’t look like Portland anymore,” said East End resident Diane Russell, who was strolling along India Street shortly before noon Tuesday.

Mountfort Street resident Alicia Laudermilk said she grew up in the neighborhood and returned three years ago after spending some time living in Windham.

“I remember when the Village Cafe was there and there weren’t a lot of buildings,” said Laudermilk, 34, who was walking with her 4-year-old son, Isaac, near the corner of Newbury and Hancock streets.

WTF? I swear to god these morons are not with it! I think ole' Diane R. and Alicia L. would prefer parking lots and urban decay/blight, judging by their ignorant responses. Had they put some time and THOUGHT into their comments, I don't think they would have been so negative as they were. It's because of short sited, ignorant jackass' like this that many cities and towns in our area are so hard to invest and develop in. Both of these dopes, including the articles' author, can take their sad sewage and move someplace else (go to Manchester, NH - there isn't shit going on there!)
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I guess Diane Russell longs for the other sights in Portland, the ones that reinforce its look and feel, such as empty lots with trash and scrap metal in Bayside, or the dilapidated houses on Munjoy Hill. These people are old, and long for the past when they were young. They don't know how to objectively see that. For those under age 50, Portland is a highly desirable place to live, work, and play. It wasn't long ago that downtown Congress Street was somewhat of a ghost town and tourists never stopped in Portland. Comments like hers should be ignored, as the PPH searches for these provincial minded folks to counter the good news. You know, newspapers sell with controversy and chaos. Keep the boom coming...
 
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TC_zoid said:
I guess Diane Russell longs for the other sights in Portland, the ones that reinforce its look and feel, such as empty lots with trash and scrap metal in Bayside, or the dilapidated houses on Munjoy Hill. These people are old, and long for the past when they were young. They don't know how to objectively see that. For those under age 50, Portland is a highly desirable place to live, work, and play. It wasn't long ago that downtown Congress Street was somewhat of a ghost town and tourists never stopped in Portland. Comments like hers should be ignored, as the PPH searches for these provincial minded folks to counter the good news. You know, newspapers sell with controversy and chaos. Keep the boom coming...
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Assuming it's the same Diane Russell, she isn't that old, but she is running for governor so maybe her comment was meant to play to the rest of the state as, " she's not all Portland-like." Because she has to realize that someone of her politics never would have been elected to represent the old Hill.
 
People in this area have a clinical fear of change. The older they get, the worse that fear. Any change, even if it is an improvement, is seen as bad.
 
Dr. StrangeHat said:
People in this area have a clinical fear of change. The older they get, the worse that fear. Any change, even if it is an improvement, is seen as bad.
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Our NIMBYism isn't bad at all compared to many places. Go to the San Francisco area and see what happens when anything taller than a single story home is proposed. Portland has made good progress in growing density.
 
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