Portland, ME - New Construction Continued

Here you go:
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Source:
https://archboston.com/community/th...nstruction-continued.944/page-117#post-197099
 
There's an opinion in the paper today opposing the zoning change for Northern Burner. Leaving that aside, one of the comments says regarding the former business, "...but it's still a little sad to see it gone. I feel the same way about Uhaul on Marginal Way."
Is something happening with the U-Haul? I don't rent trucks often (try driving a 10-foot panel truck down to NYC when the winds on I-95 through New Haven are gusting at 30+ mph), but they're incredibly handy for filling propane tanks 364 days a year.
 
nomc said:
I don't think these updates have been posted elsewhere on this forum? Most of the new renderings look very similar, but one does have a view of the 5 story building and the whole development is now 125 units. Here's the list of alterations from Kaplan Thompson:



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Building E is well underway. I didn’t see any indication construction has begun on the other buildings.
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It seems that Portland's downtown office sector continues its post-covid rebound.

www.mainebiz.biz

A Bangor engineering firm expands its Portland footprint with move

The acquisition of a Portland firm last year expanded the Haley Ward presence in southern Maine. From an initial 20 possibilities in Greater Portland, the prospects were whittled to eight — all visited in a single day.
www.mainebiz.biz www.mainebiz.biz

The article states that 12 Mountfort Street (the Covetrus building) is now almost fully leased to multiple tenants and that there's been strong renewed interest in premium downtown office space.

It's also kind of interesting that this particular building is catering mostly to science, tech and engineering companies...compared to most downtown buildings which are mostly full of legal and financial firms.

I personally think we'll see renewed interest in building a "next generation" office building downtown within the next 2 years. Office vacancy rates are not far from where they were pre-covid (About 8% for Class-A office space) and as older office buildings get repurposed (Fidelity Building, Time & Temp Building) more and more companies are interested in finding new premium space downtown. The general trend is companies leasing smaller amounts of space, or wanting "flex" space. Any new office building will be designed to reflect that.
 
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Well said Cosakita! If you build it they will come. New office space like this does fill up. I think it would be great to see a true office tower with mixed uses on the ground floor go up near Union Station, of course, in downtown, or in Bayside. Union Station comes to mind because of my dream of making that the Amtrak station there but also making the station a mixed use station. (As seen in the rough renderings I shared). Have offices, residential buildings, retail, and restaurants all by the station. That way you have people from NH, other parts of Maine, and elsewhere taking the train into work which is steps away from the train station! Many mention in this forum, “Portland is not far away from a boom” I believe we have seen glimpses of it (Roux, Federal tower, Maine Med, etc.) but if the city begins to think outside of the box (approve a 20 story office tower to start😉), Portland will grow the right way and positively!
 
It seems that the days of big office towers are behind us. Part of the ReCode changes introduced new dimensional standards for towers (defined as any building above 125 feet) To limit the building's floorplate to 10,000 SF. Typically office buildings have much larger floorplates (14-20,000 SF)

However, I do think a modest 6-9 story flexible-use office building would fit the post-covid market well.
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My gut feeling is after the Recode is approved, you should start seeing proposals come through. I would think to see Portland Sq come back as a 30-35 story building?
 
PWMFlyer said:
My gut feeling is after the Recode is approved, you should start seeing proposals come through. I would think to see Portland Sq come back as a 30-35 story building?
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The tallest parcels will be zoned for 325 ft. Which would equate to a 28-30 story building.
 
Boston has a somewhat problematic office vacancy rate yet new towers are still being built. Two recent 50 story plus office towers include luxury condos, and State Street Bank just finished a 46 story office tower near TD Garden. And then there is the Seaport District where Amazon recently built two towers for robotics, A.I., and cloud computing workers. The mayor suggested that they might have to raise residential property taxes to offset the commercial space taxes that have been substantially reduced after Covid.

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/loca...-protect-residents-from-sudden-shock/3501467/

But what these new builds indicate is that there is strong demand for new higher tech or different designed office space. I think a new tower next to or squeezed in between the two WEX buildings would be leased out with relatively few problems. Portland needs to focus more on science and tech for its economy, or in the manner that Boston is because A, Portland is so close to Boston (commutable), and B, the science and tech industries are growing at a seemingly exponential rate. USM should step up with a beefed up biology, or biotech program, with a tall and substantial building on campus. IDEXX, Covetrus, WEX, Tyler Technologies, and Roux are the more dynamic places to work and study for tech now in Southern Maine. Retail giant LL Bean will stagnate as retail competition is literally from around the world now with online purchasing becoming the norm. Bath Iron Works? I guess war will always be a thing, but then again tech will reduce or adjust seafaring weaponry (big boats). At Harvard and MIT, there are many partnerships with tech companies that result in post graduate students and staff working in a kind of symbiotic relationship. Harvard's new science center in Allston inlcudes over 200 private company scientists working on stem cell research. Roux is also on top of this idea and so should USM as a focus on the humanities is certinaly not enough to produce substantive high paying jobs. Creating new concert violinists and ballerinas at their new $60 million dollar arts center is wonderful for high or higher culture, but a de facto minimal impact for the economy.
 
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TC_zoid said:
Boston has a somewhat problematic office vacancy rate yet new towers are still being built. Two recent 50 story plus office towers include luxury condos, and State Street Bank just finished a 46 story office tower near TD Garden. And then there is the Seaport District where Amazon recently built two towers for robotics, A.I., and cloud computing workers. The mayor suggested that they might have to raise residential property taxes to offset the commercial space taxes that have been substantially reduced after Covid.

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/loca...-protect-residents-from-sudden-shock/3501467/

But what these new builds indicate is that there is strong demand for new higher tech or different designed office space. I think a new tower next to or squeezed in between the two WEX buildings would be leased out with relatively few problems. Portland needs to focus more on science and tech for its economy, or in the manner that Boston is because A, Portland is so close to Boston (commutable), and B, the science and tech industries are growing at a seemingly exponential rate. USM should step up with a beefed up biology, or biotech program, with a tall and substantial building on campus. IDEXX, Covetrus, WEX, Tyler Technologies, and Roux are the more dynamic places to work and study for tech now in Southern Maine. Retail giant LL Bean will stagnate as retail competition is literally from around the world now with online purchasing becoming the norm. Bath Iron Works? I guess war will always be a thing, but then again tech will reduce or adjust seafaring weaponry (big boats). At Harvard and MIT, there are many partnerships with tech companies that result in post graduate students and staff working in a kind of symbiotic relationship. Harvard's new science center in Allston inlcudes over 200 private company scientists working on stem cell research. Roux is also on top of this idea and so should USM as a focus on the humanities is certinaly not enough to produce substantive high paying jobs. Creating new concert violinists and ballerinas at their new $60 million dollar arts center is wonderful for high or higher culture, but a de facto minimal impact for the economy.
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You can forget about USM becoming much more than it already is. It’s a regional university based in the humanities. The Orono campus controls the purse strings. It’s an R1 research university that did roughly $250 million in research last year (USM did around $30 million). The System isn’t going to shift that. They are about to start construction on new or gut renovations to all the engineering and computer science facilities (roughly $150 million). They are spending $25 million to upgrade the campus electrical infrastructure and are currently in design for a $150 million energy center to handle increased demand in electricity and such. Add in the $210 million on athletic facilities. There is a reason the “UMS” (not to be confused with “USM”) graduate center is on Fore Street (with the Alfond grant going to renovating and buying the building) and not on USM campus…Orono said no way to their graduate school of business being on USM campus. Even the law school is its own separate entity now.
 
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