There is a India Street Neighborhood site walk tonight, and the Portland Daily Sun has an interview with Hugh Reznor of the neighborhood association. It doesnt say what they want the height limits to be, but it seems like more of the same from these peoPle....
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India Street residents organize as developers converge
Written by David Carkhuff
The India Street neighborhood is ready for its close-up.
Described as a no-man's land that residents say has been neglected by planners and hampered by construction of the Franklin Street arterial, these days the India Street neighborhood is enjoying a building boom and surge in public interest.
Deemed by many a planning afterthought on the outskirts of the Old Port and waterfront, the India Street neighborhood is bounded roughly by Washington Street, taking in both sides of Congress Street to the Franklin Street arterial, runs along Commercial Street and Thames Street until it gets past the new Residence Inn by Marriott, and is bordered by Mountfort Street.
At 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Portland Planning Board will conduct a site walk of the India Street neighborhood as part of an evaluation of building heights under current zoning.
"We're trying to push the city for a neighborhood-centered cohesive plan, and the height overlay is the first step," explained Hugh Nazor, secretary treasurer of the India Street Neighborhood Association.
After the site walk, the public can join a workshop at the southwesterly corner of the India and Middle streets intersection. After the site tour and workshop, planners will meet at Portland City Hall to discuss and act on several India Street area developments. These projects include:
• Construction of 18 luxury residential condominiums next to the new Hampton Inn hotel on Fore and Middle streets.
• Revisions to an approved subdivision and site plan for the Bay House, a proposed 94-unit residential development on Middle Street now known as Village at Oceangate.
•*A zoning amendment application by Hampshire Street Properties, for 26 residential condominiums through redevelopment of several parcels in the Hampshire Street area owned by wealthy financier Donald Sussman. Best known as a hedge fund manager, Sussman also is majority owner of Maine Today Media and husband to U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine.
Nazor said the Sussman project has sparked excitement in the neighborhood, fueling hopes of a comeback from years of lost residential space. He estimated there are only 141 dwelling units in the entire India Street neighborhood.
"A lot of them have been disappearing over the years with buildings getting run down," he said.
Now, with pending developments, the number of dwelling units is on the verge of doubling, for a total of just under 300 residential units.
"It's such a walkable and convenient neighborhood," Nazor said.
"It's probably the coolest neighborhood in Portland," said real estate developer Kevin Bunker, who is representing Sussman's redevelopment of Hampshire Street parcels. The goal is to build 26 residential condominiums in a block, which, with the exception of one property, is in single ownership and bounded by Franklin, Federal and Newbury streets. The condos would rise four stories with a mezzanine.
There's even talk of connecting Federal and Newbury Street to the arterial, something that Bunker said is a hoped-for improvement but "on its own timetable."
Following the zone-change request and impending planning board review, Bunker said he hopes to have all approvals for the Hampshire Street condos by the end of summer. He hopes to offer units for sale late next spring.
"Watch for the design, it's going to be something that's going to knock your socks off," Bunker said. "Portland doesn't have anything like it, it's going to be the coolest building in Portland."
"We're overjoyed that this project is going forward," said Nazor, noting that the association has become involved, with varying degrees of support or opposition, with all of the pending developments.
The association formed in January 2011 — "It was the last piece of Portland on the peninsula to be unrepresented," Nazor said. The group has been pushing the city ever since for a planning update, he said.
"There is no guiding vision, we are seeking one, we are seeking the height overlay along India Street as a first step," Nazor said.
Meanwhile, a word that commonly arises with the flurry of condo development is "gentrification." The condos proposed next to the Hampton Inn, for example, would cater to upper-income earners, with prices ranging from $445,000 to $850,000 for units ranging from 1,559 square feet to 2,359 feet, according to real estate promotional materials.
"You can call it gentrification, but the problem is that has more pejorative overtones," Nazor said.
"There are quite a few professional people who do live in the neighborhood now, and there is a considerable demand for more to come," he said.
A planning memo about the Hampton Inn property condo and office space development acknowledges that professional service firms and technology firms are the most likely occupants of the office space based on "initial expressions of interest and consultations with commercial real estate brokers."
"The 18 residential condominium units will all be market priced, and based on land values and development costs in this part of Portland, it is expected that occupants will have higher than average income and/or net worth," reads a transportation demand management plan by Greg Kirsch and Stephen Long.
First floor "pedestrian oriented" retail uses on Middle and Fore streets include 12,583 square feet on Middle Street and 9,880 square feet on Fore Street. A potential user for the Middle Street retail space is an "urban grocer" with a focus on healthy, natural and organic foods and other products, the TDM plan memo states.
"The Project would be an excellent work location for residents of Peaks Island and the other islands, with the ferry terminal less than 1,000 feet (on sidewalks) from the Fore Street side of the Project and about 1,200 feet to the Middle Street side (along streets)," reads the transportation demand management plan.
Nazor said the neighborhood can benefit from a mix of new residents.
Buildings were allowed to decay in the neighborhood after construction of Franklin Street arterial in the 1960s. Today, tastes in home ownership are changing.
"People are looking for spaces where they can be in the city," Nazor said.
The percentage of occupants who live on peninsula and walk to work could rise, the TDM plan memo states, as other housing developments, including the Bay House Project on Newbury Street, are built.
On Sept. 22, 2009, the planning board approved the Bay House plan for 82 residential units and commercial space on Middle Street and 159 parking spaces. The applicant, Demitri Dasco of Village at Oceangate, has asked for an amendment to increase the units to 94 units and a 10-year payment plan for $20,000 a year on infrastructure upgrades to Hancock Street extension.
The association isn't actively supportive of Village at Oceangate — "We are resigned to its passage, and in some ways having something there is better than nothing," Nazor said. The association is following the Hampton Inn proposal, an effort by Opechee Construction of Belmont, N.H., developer of the neighboring Hampton Inn hotel at the former site of a defunct Jordan's Meats plant.
Nazor said association members have talked with Opechee developers "and they have cooperated as much as they feel they can," he said.
Concerns over height and design were shared, and "they've done what they could," he said.
The Sussman project centered on Hampshire Street has received a warmer reception.
"They came and talked a number of times to the association for months before approaching the city," Nazor said. "That's the kind of neighborhood input and involvment that neighborhood groups dream about."
