Portland, ME - New Construction Continued

Preliminary renderings of 46 Free Street are included in next week's HPB agenda materials. The proposal is for a 6-story building (7 on the backside including underground parking) with first-floor retail and 51 apartments above.

I think this could be a great infill of the Free Street facade as well as provide much-needed housing on the peninsula.

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Max said:
Preliminary renderings of 46 Free Street are included in next week's HPB agenda materials. The proposal is for a 6-story building (7 on the backside including underground parking) with first-floor retail and 51 apartments above.

I think this could be a great infill of the Free Street facade as well as provide much-needed housing on the peninsula.

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larger than I was imagining, and a nice scale for that area. I'm very impressed

This would be the first 20 + unit market-rate apartment project since the Hiawatha in 2017, and overall this looks like a slightly scaled-down version of that building.
 
^ Same architects (Ryan Senatore) as the Hiawatha. Great to see another parking lot slated to be converted to a more active, productive use, and smart for JB Brown to continue addressing downtown's housing shortage so they can add value to their other properties.
 
A great addition to lower Free Street and it will also have a positive impact as viewed from Spring Street.
 
Woah! Just saw a Master Development Plan has been filed for the remaining Portland Square parking lots, and it's massive! I've just started to look over the materials but it's calling for housing, office, retail and hotel, and it appears some portions could reach 10 stories or more.

Tons of renderings are available in the submitted materials, clearly they've been working on this for awhile:

https://egweb.portlandmaine.gov/ene...9-93b3-4e61-bd82-0dab277941bc?tab=attachments
 
Wow, nice find Max!

My initial reactions:

(1) Obviously I feel as though an opportunity for more height is being missed, but I do like how the development steps up from Commercial Street. It appears to be following the same height pattern of what is already built out along Union Street, which probably aligns with the max height zoned here. It does appear as though 6 Portland Square and 5 Portland Square both go to the max allowable height along Fore Street.

(2) I'm not overly impressed with the design of 6 Portland Square, which will sit at the corner of Center and Fore Street. I'd like to see a bit more contrast compared to the design of 5 Portland Square. It's also too boxy.

(3) As Max noted, it seems like they've been working on this for a while. Well thought-out so far.

(4) This, along with 46 Free Street and Jim Brady's hotel project, will fill a glaring hole in the urban fabric when viewed from Commercial Street.
 
Max, not sure why but I can't download the attachments. Could you post the renderings on here?
 
There are dozens of renderings, from all sorts of different elevations, in the materials, but below are two of the more interesting ones, an overhead view of the full development looking north from Fore Street, and the view of the "upper" development at Spring and Cotton Streets.

A few things I've noted reviewing the materials further:

1) it's proposed to be built in phases

2) the Center Street hotel is a part of this proposal in that they've sold that piece to Jim Brady and he's developing it separately but it's part of the overall consideration of the site development

3) Cotton Street would be reconnected to Spring Street

4) It looks like the "upper" development would top out at 11 stories plus mechanical / roof stuff.


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Portlander said:
Max, not sure why but I can't download the attachments. Could you post the renderings on here?
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Try Chrome I'd your haven't; I find that the city planning site works poorly in Firefox ( no idea on IE, Edge or Safari).
 
Thanks Max, I love it. Am also glad that my source was correct in late 2016 when I was told that an ambitious project for this lot was on the drawing board and boring tests soon followed.
 
Max said:
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I must admit I'm not a huge fan of having the garage fronting Spring St. I wish there was at least a thin layer of office / residential to hide a bit more of the parking.
 
^ I tend to agree with you, but they have blended the garage portion fairly well into the facade and the corner overhang by One Portland Square is pretty cool looking. Hopefully Max will post a few more renderings because I have had no luck retrieving them.
 
Although nice to see something go into these parking lots, it is not a very friendly development. The pedestrian and social activity is only inside (or the roof), as plaza space is apparently, non-existent. Simply look at the new buildings going up in Boston's Seaport District, especially the new street that connects between Seaport Blvd. and Congress (E Service Road). The buildings are angled, thus creating fantastic public space with trees, rocks, cafes, wide steps to sit on, etc. This is easily accomplished by making the buildings taller, so that space can be found on the ground. (Oh my, God!, a twenty story building in Maine!!!!) This master plan kind of sucks. It's cold and alienating.
 
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I wish the buildings were a little less squat and square, but I like that these lots could finally be filled in. I won't hold my breath on the project actually getting done, let alone getting done in any way close to that rendering :rolleyes:
 
TC, I agree with your taller building vision for Portland but this is not the correct location. The height limit for that parcel is 125' at last check which would equate to a 10-12 floor maximum. The elevation plan for this project shows the taller tower on Spring Street at 10 floors above grade and topping out at 115' not counting mechanical making it about 10 feet shorter than One Portland Square. The Top of the Old Port parking lots and the Congress Street spine is the only portion of downtown that zoning would permit the height most of us would eventually like to see.

Josh, they were doing test borings on the site today and this development team has the financial ability and track record to follow through. This project has been in the planning stages for 3 years. After looking at the plans, it appears that the hotel on Commercial Street will be built first followed by the garage at Spring and Cotton with the two tower portions added to the top of the garage at a later date.
 
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Portlander said:
TC, I agree with your taller building vision for Portland but this is not the correct location. The height limit for that parcel is 125' at last check which would equate to a 10-12 floor maximum. The elevation plan for this project shows the taller tower on Spring Street at 10 floors above grade and topping out at 115' not counting mechanical making it about 10 feet shorter than One Portland Square. The Top of the Old Port parking lots and the Congress Street spine is the only portion of downtown that zoning would permit the height most of us would eventually like to see.

Josh, they were doing test borings on the site today and this development team has the financial ability and track record to follow through. This project has been in the planning stages for 3 years. After looking at the plans, it appears that the hotel on Commercial Street will be built first followed by the garage at Spring and Cotton with the two tower portions added to the top of the garage at a later date.
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Not sure I understand why exceptions can't be made, especially in light of zoning rules made years ago, and areas of popularity do change. The deal would be that the developer gets their desired square footage (taller), but has to make public plaza/function areas. As is, this won't happen. Also, this lot could have a wide foot bridge to the arena, and that could be expanded on the north end, over the street, etc. with more exhibition space. As is, the CIA is a weakened convention center option, and the new development on the lots will be nothing but office park-ish functions. Both will continue to be a blah, boring, and unrealized potential dynamic.
 
Perhaps sticking to the permitted heights within the zoning instead of seeking a contract zone or exception to go higher is the developers' way of getting this approved quickly? We've all seen first hand in the past 10 years what happens when anything of height is proposed in the city, and that recent history was preceded by decades of the same kind of NIMBYism. The Peter Monroe's of the world get their britches all tangled up and pee down their legs out of fear that the big tall buildings will eat them. If you're a developer, then why even take a chance that those clowns will derail yet another project, especially given the sharp increase in construction costs over the past few years?

It sucks that developers have to cower to these things around here, but unfortunately that is the reality we live in now. Midtown's failure has only emboldened the height-averse NIMBYs.
 
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