Portland, ME - New Construction Continued

Portlander said:
Well written and dead on! Any new structure that would restore the former street wall would be a welcome improvement. Deering Oaks is just a short walk down High Street for those individuals that are seeking an urban oasis.
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As is the YWCA lot, which is literally a block away (good luck seeing that thing redeveloped). With 645 Congress Street bulldozing a good chunk of its posterior, the YWCA removing its building, etc., it seems like Portland is taking away more than it is adding in this area. There are even plans now to pave the area in between Geno's and the adjacent building.
 
I would prefer a building beside Geno's, but paving the dirt lot will be a plus in the short term. There is also talk of making it a street which will provide access between Deering St and Congress. The Portland Museum of Art intends to use the YWCA lot for future expansion, though it will be years down the road.
 
I just hope the parking would be turned into a building sooner than later. A street sounds like a much better idea for that area.

on an unrelated issue, here is a nice aerial and drawing I located online looking for office space:
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a building or a street would be nice....a parking lot would not....it seems to me, there are plenty of parking lots on the Peninsula
 
Tonight, the city council will review the potential for a train station on commercial street, for the extension of the Downeaster to Brunswick. Commercial St along the western waterfront is one of the first choices apparently, but there are also three other potential stops in the running.
There is some talk that a train station along commercial street will revitalize the western waterfront.
What do people think of potential stops on the peninsula?
 
Locating the train station in the vicinity of the Casco Bay Bridge (should have been named the Portland Harbor Bridge) would work well and may inject some vitality to that end of Commercial Street. By the way, I also dislike the designation of Thames Street at the other end of the street. It should have been a natural extension of Commercial Street in my opinion and I would have excepted East Commercial over Thames. It confuses tourists and locals alike.
 
Todd, I could be wrong, but here is my understanding.

The route was long ago decided to be the suburban forest ave/deering route (I forget the name...but Andrew the posted aka Union Station should know) which would expand amtrack to brunswick, and I believe work has already begun on this project. Now, that being said, there has also been some unrelated talk with the regional director of amtrak as to providing a passenger platform terminus on western commercial street as a way to drop people off on the peninsula after stopping at the western transportation center by thompson's point. That idea I first heard of a few years ago, and haven't heard much more about it since. NEXT, there is the Portland North study by the Dept of Transportation to bring commuters to downtown via BRT or commuter rail, and that study has as one of the main options a drop off site at the base of Center Street, on Commercial street. I wonder if it was that which was discussed? Where did you hear this info, because now I am confused? THanks for the post! Rail on commercial is a great idea.
 
The info was posted on Rights Of Way, a transportation blog. In the blog posting, it said that a representative from Amtrak was presenting to the City Council on three possible locations for the downtown stop. This is the first I have heard of it, but you may be right Patrick about the decision for the Deering St location.
 
Yeah, or you could be right, I don't really know. Things often change in urban and transportation planning. That said, however, I think this would be a side stop or terminus rather than extension to Brunswick, unless there are new plans. Personally, I think it would have been better to go up commercial and over the east end. The other alternative was to go over forest ave via a train bridge and continue up through Bayside. That decision, however, was ruled out early on due to costs.

Speaking of Rights of Way, if you enjoy that blog you might be interested to know, if you don't already, that it is written by an occasional poster on this site, cneal.
 
The first one is a framed skyline I took, and the second two relate to a new commercial high rise planned for Congress Street decades ago which was never completed. Looks like it was to have been about 15 stories tall. Note the Marlboro billboard atop the structure.
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Nice picture Corey. For a minute there I was excited that the architectural elements had changed somewhat from the renderings. It looks almost like there is a first floor level that is wider at the base than the upper floors, in a way that would extend to the street line more. I like that type of architecture, as it blends taller buildings with the traditional street level interaction of shorter structures. Drove by today, though, and noticed it was just construction material for the workers laying the brick facade. It almost reminded me of plans in the 1980s to restore the Galt Block into a nice hotel with a glass walled restaurant at the first level.

Speaking of the 1980s, I just learned that Michael Liberty was only 24 years old when he developed Chandler's Wharf. Interesting
 
Thanks for sharing, I hadn't seen the updated renderings yet.

for more rendering updates, see the rendering thread:
 
Drawing on a combination of my own knowledge and knowledge gained from reading through Portlander's collection of old newspaper clippings, I sat for an interview this morning with a reporter from Portland Magazine on a story which is planned for One City Center and the site on which it sits, as well as the buildings it replaced and what it may mean for the future of downtown. That is the story as it was loosely explained to me, but it is subject to change. The issue should be on stands in March. Incidentally, what I also learned from this reporter is that the granite house on State Street just after Longfellow Square was built by a lawyer/boxer/women's right advocate, John Neil (or Neal?) in the 1830s, which predates the Old Port. At that time, State Street was the western fringe of Portland, and the West End mansions had not yet been built (having been largely a response to the Great Fire which destroyed the wooden structures existing until that time). Apparently, this guy had spent a lot of time in London, and wanted to copy there architectural style and develop the whole block to look like that, but like today the stock market crashed due to speculative real estate gambles, and only two such houses got built. Urban history is fascinating.
 
^ Interesting stuff, I look forward to seeing the article.

According to the Maine Memory Network, you are correct that the structure on State Street was built by John Neal. [http://www.mainememory.net/bin/Detail?ln=20930]. I would love to have more of those types of buildings here. I think it would have helped the area develop into it's own unique district (like Boston's Beacon Hill for example).
 
Portlander said:
I would prefer a building beside Geno's, but paving the dirt lot will be a plus in the short term. There is also talk of making it a street which will provide access between Deering St and Congress. The Portland Museum of Art intends to use the YWCA lot for future expansion, though it will be years down the road.
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I vote in favor of adding a building here along Congress Street. I think a street connecting Deering Street and Congress Street here would be unnecessary, in addition to taking away some prime land and affecting the traffic flow (it would result in fewer parking spaces on Congress due to set-backs and the street would align oddly across from Park Street). Used to be a nice urban streetwall on this side of Congress:

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I look forward to future development around the old YWCA lot also.
 
The WYCA and SPring St. area are really in need of some shaping up. Spring Street, as I understand it, came from the same Model Cities grant that caused Franklin Arterial, and it has similar effects as that arterial. It not only looks bad, but for nearly 1,000 feet it disconnects Gorhams Corner from downtown. Who wants to walk down Spring? Who even wants to drive down it? The Holiday Inn made demands that it look that way before they would build there, and that was at a different time, when city plans showed the future of portland to be a series of interconnecting arterials surrounded by parking garages. the PSA has been discussing how to fix this area a little bit, at least in a preliminary way. Other groups have, too. In 2007, Kvin Donahue told consultants working with Janet Marie Smith on CCCC renovation options that we don't need spring street, so she should feel free to build out on to it. It was at that time I started to think about the issue myself. Now YWCA is gone, and it is a park. Good luck seeing that redeveloped. There is going to be a lot more protest to development there now that it is a park. In the 1980s, there was a plan to fill in the old YWCA parking lot on free street with row house style office condos, just behind the PMA. That area of the city needs some big time work.

anyway, thanks for the historical photo.
 
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