Portland's Congress Square: Upgrade or unload?
PORTLAND ? The city is exploring options for the Congress Square park at Congress and High streets, including redesign or sale of the property.
The Congress Square Redesign Study Group, made up of local business and neighborhood representatives and city officials, is planning a public forum next month to gather input on what the community would like to see happen with the park.
Officials and business leaders have decided the space needs a rebirth.
"Not for lack of trying, it is a failed space," said city Historic Preservation Manager Deb Andrews, who is staffing the group.
Portland Downtown District Director Jan Beitzer said the district has been eyeing redesign of the sunken, bricked park for several years. The study group will use a $50,000 grant from the city to conduct initial planning and then hire an outside consultant.
"It's a gateway to downtown," Beitzer said. "Twenty-two thousand vehicles go through the corner (a day). It does not serve as the iconic gateway to the Arts District that we'd like to see."
The group met last week at the Eastland Park Hotel to hear about the history of the property from Andrews. The next step is to gather public comment.
"There are a number of things that can be done with that area," said Penny Littell, the city's director of Planning and Urban Development. "We can redesign it with a building or a park."
While Littell cautioned that a decision about the park is far from being made, one option is to sell part or all of the property, which totals about a third of an acre.
Congress Square underwent a dramatic transformation in the late 1970s, Andrews said, using an urban design grant.
Until the 1940s, residential buildings with storefronts filled the space. Those buildings were cleared and replaced with a commercial block that for a time was occupied by a Walgreens pharmacy and later a Dunkin' Donuts shop.
In 1979, the Dunkin' Donuts building was demolished the city took ownership of the parcel, and turned it into the park that exists today.
As part of that same urban design grant program, Andrews said, the historic Hay Building across Congress Street was restored and the Payson Wing was built at the Portland Museum of Art. The Eastland Park Hotel on High Street was also rehabilitated.
The park was meant to serve as a connection between the Eastland and the museum, said Andrews. It is home to the clock from the old Union Station that was on St. John Street and has some seating and a stage. Andrews said efforts to create programming at the park have failed.
"It's underutilized," Beitzer said. "It needs to be refreshed."
It could be redesigned to support a sculpture, she said, or to be a space for temporary art.
Besides the downtown district, representatives from the Eastland, the museum, the Bayside and Parkside neighborhoods, Greater Portland Landmarks and a couple of local architects are members of the study group. City Councilors David Marshall and Kevin Donoghue are co-chairmen.
The public forum is scheduled for May 12 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Eastland Park Hotel, 157 High St.
Portland Planning Board OKs Old Port hotel, North Deering bank
PORTLAND ? The Planning Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a new hotel development for the former Jordan's Meat property in the Old Port.
Developer Mark Woglom, president of New Hampshire-based Opechee Construction Corp, said interior demolition has already begun at the 207-209 block on Fore Street and expects the former hot dog factory will be completely removed within the next few weeks.
Woglom has formed a new company, Old Port Hospitality, for the project. He said sidewalks around the property ? which is bounded by Fore, India and Middle streets and Franklin Arterial ? are expected to remain open throughout construction, except during certain phases of the demolition.
The site is being cleared to make way for a six-story, 122-room Hampton Inn that will also have a 7,000-square-foot Sebago Brewing Co. restaurant with outdoor cafe-style seating and 12 top-floor residential condominiums. The project is expected to be completed as soon as next summer.
The building plan approved by the board for the 1.75-acre site has been updated since it was first introduced March 9. Windows have been added to a secondary entrance and stairway for hotel patrons and residents on Market Street, and a Franklin Arterial-facing wall has been made more pedestrian friendly.
During the public hearing, resident Markos Miller, a member of the Franklin Arterial Committee, complimented the changes, but suggested the city go further and explore narrowing the Franklin-Fore Street intersection and expanding sidewalks.
"There's a lot of road there that is not being used," said Miller, who also convinced Woglom to agree to preserve the Jordan's Meat sign.
But resident Robert Haines criticized the parking plan, which would provide about 90 surface-level spaces for hotel guests and condo residents, but none for restaurant patrons.
Instead of providing the necessary parking, the developer agreed to give the city $50,000 to expand and improve on-street parking opportunities, mostly along Franklin Arterial. The Ocean Gateway parking garage could also be utilized, Woglom said.
Representatives of the state's unionized iron workers and laborers spoke in support of the project, calling on the developer to hire local workers at with competitive wages and benefits.
John Evans, a representative of unionize iron workers, said "I think the city of Portland needs this ? the state of Maine needs this. I hope to have the opportunity to build this hotel."
However, Haines contended the plan "bordered on illegality," since the necessary code changes that would allow that arrangement, though narrowly approved by the Planning Board, have not been approved by the City Council.
"The parking for this stinks," Haines said. "It stinks like a load of fish that didn't get unloaded in time."
Although planning administrators said the board had authority over parking issues, board members agreed with Haines and required the developer's to secure at least 10 parking spaces, by lease or purchase, in a nearby parking garage.
"Although we can stretch the language, I'm a little uncomfortable doing it," board Chairman Bill Hall said.
Since Woglom intends to further develop the India Street and Middle Street sides of the lot, the board granted waivers requiring brick sidewalks on Middle Street and reduced the landscaping for the surface parking lot.
If the second phase of development does not move forward in two to four years, the developer will pay to replace the asphalt sidewalk with brick and improve the landscaping to meet city standards.
"This is a good project," board member David Silk said. "These are little things that over time make the big difference."
Regional transit agency hopes to boost profile, funding with video production
PORTLAND ? The Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System has created an eight-minute video to educate the public and, in the process, drum up support for underfunded projects.
As a federally funded program, PACTS cannot actively lobby state or federal officials for more funding. While the video presents viewers with the funding problem and asks them to get involved by contacting elected officials, it does not explicitly advocate for any specific piece of legislation.
PACTS Executive Director John Duncan said the video was sanctioned by administrators of state and federal transportation programs.
"We're walking a fine line," Duncan said. "We have to be careful about how we say things."
The video opens with the message: "A vital resource needs our help."
The first half of the production introduces to viewers to PACTS, which coordinates regional transportation plans and distributes federal and state funding for transportation projects to 15 communities from Biddeford to Freeport.
About half-way through, however, the otherwise upbeat background music turns into a somber, solitary piano melody, which is overlaid with images of rusty bridge joints, pot hole-pocked roads and crumbling concrete.
The narrator says state infrastructure needs $500 million in maintenance and upgrades over the next 10 years, but the current funding formula will only produce $250 million.
At that point, the music grows more ominous, followed by a closeup of the hole that appeared last spring in the Veteran's Memorial Bridge, which carries 23,000 vehicles daily between Portland and South Portland.
"What you're looking at is a gaping hole in the Veteran's Bridge," the narrators says. "This hole reflects the conditions that many of the roads and bridges are in throughout our state."
The video does not mention that the bridge is scheduled for a $63 million replacement by 2012.
The narrator then says the average age of buses in the region's fleet is 14 years, "well past their economic and environmentally useful life." Meanwhile, ridership on Portland's METRO has increased 23 percent since 1999.
The message ? and music ? turns more hopeful at the end, with shots of the Blaine House, U.S. Capitol and and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
The narrator suggests that a 5 cent-per-gallon gas tax would only cost the average driver $30 a year, while additional car repairs from driving on poor roads will cost that same driver $260 a year.
"It's pay now," he warns, "or pay a lot more later. ... Your leaders need guidance."
While some rail activists have criticized PACTS for focusing too much attention on roads, Duncan said he has largely received positive feedback about the video, which was produced by Mike McDade at Falmouth Community Television for $3,500.
Duncan said PACTS plans on producing future video spots that focus on more specific issues. In addition to YouTube, the videos are running on community television channels in PACTS service areas.
Meanwhile, PACTS has has also created a blog, which was launched when the Portland City Council voted to accept the Portland Peninsula Transportation Plan, which recommends adding a bus-only lane on Congress Street, installing better signs for parking garages and posting more "no right turn on red" signs.
"We're trying to get ourselves more in the public eye," Duncan said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiAr4dVVFC4&feature=player_embedded#!
