Portland, ME - New Construction Continued

Thats a good start....hope it amounts to sonething urban and economically viable for Portland
 
I rented a cottage in Old Orchard Beach last week on vacation with some old friends from college, 4 of them had never been to Portland so we decided to head up for a day visit. I had no been up to Portland in over 2 years, and I have to say the city has gotten even better than what I remember it as being. First, there was tons of pedestrians on the entire peninsula. Second, the amount of commerce and businesses open on a Friday, mid afternoon was amazing. Portland reminded me for a lack of better words...Portsmouth on steroids in terms of being a hip, busy, but not too touristy town. We checked out the museum of Art and the place was huge with many different exhibits open (not multiple empty rooms like other Art Museums). Had dinner at Poo Boys and Pickles on Forest Ave, which was delicious.
I will definitely be taking my better half up there, as this was just a bunch of dudes pecking around looking for non-toxic entertainment. Although we did stop by Gritty's for a couple pints (an excellent laid-back establishment).

I just wanted to let all you Mainiacs and/or Portlanders know that you live in an awesome city. I currently live in Manchvegas, which only dreams of being as hip and unique as Portland. I would even say Portland, ME might be more fun than Portland, OR since everything to do in Maine is so close...as Stumptown is great too, just more spread out. Some of my friends said the locals reminded them of the Pacific Northwest along with the plethora of coffee shops/expresso bars and cafes.
 
^Glad you had a good visit! I have heard a few comparisons to the Northwest before. I literally never leave the city of Portland but I wish I did so I could get a first-hand sense of how it compares to other places.

This isn't Portland new development, but it's kind of close. This PPH story is about a new zoning area in Gorham, a few towns over, at the crossroads of a couple main roads that lead towards Portland. Basically the city is trying to grow this part of town into a more traditional "New England village" like downtown Gorham through a new zoning measure. Someone wants to build a Cumberland Farms gas station here and a city councilor said "Cumberland Farms' proposal wouldn't create the kind of streetscape that's envisioned in the zoning -- with buildings close to the street, parking in back and sidewalks in front." I assume they will end up granting approval for a gas station and a few strip malls here, but kudos to the town planners and this city councilor for having a positive vision.
 
Seanflynn78 said:
Portland reminded me for a lack of better words...Portsmouth on steroids in terms of being a hip, busy, but not too touristy town. ...
I just wanted to let all you Mainiacs and/or Portlanders know that you live in an awesome city. I currently live in Manchvegas, which only dreams of being as hip and unique as Portland.
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I agree that Portland is much cooler than Manchester--in fact, Portland might be my favorite city in all of New England. And I've often made the Portsmouth comparison, myself. But what I think really makes Portland so great--if we can continue the NH comparison--is that it's really like a combination of the best (and some of the worst, too) of Portsmouth and Manchester.

Portland has nearly all the quaintness, and at least as much quirkiness, hipness and bustle as Portsmouth. Unlike Portsmouth, though, it's also a business and undisputed cultural center for the region. I love Portsmouth, and I see huge (as yet untapped) potential in Manchester, but they split a lot of things to their mutual detriment.

Manchester has most of the business, including a growing cluster of tech start-ups in the Millyard, as mentioned in the Globe last Sunday. Manchester also has the sports teams, it gets most of the big concerts and conventions, and it has one of the best art museums in New England. Of course, it's also much more of a population center than Portsmouth, and has the diverse neighborhoods that go along with that. Portsmouth, on the other hand, has the tourists, the fine dining, the exciting nightlife, the bustling downtown (all the downtown Manchester is pretty busy during the work week), the charm and the history.

Portland has a lot of strengths--a beautiful setting, a healthy distance from but reasonable proximity to Boston, a thriving tourist base, a state government that is much more supportive of urban investments and infrastructure, and so on--but I think one of it's greatest strengths is its relative lack of competition in Maine. Obviously there are other cities, but Portland is the clearly dominant city. In New Hampshire, it's hard to say whether Portsmouth or Manchester would fill that role. That's not to say that Portland and the people who live there haven't done a remarkable job making it the wonderful city it is today, but I think comparing Manchester to Portland is a bit unfair.

I would, however, love to see Manchester learn from Portland, especially in terms of urban policy. Portland is great and will probably remain untouched among small and mid-size cities in New England, but its leaders and residents are continually working to make a more vibrant place. Portland acts like the city it is, while Manchester continues to compete with neighboring suburbs. Manchester will probably always play second-fiddle to Portsmouth in terms of charming history, quaintness and tourism, but with the right policies and vision, it could build on its unique strengths as Portland and Portsmouth have.
 
FrankLloydMike said:
I agree that Portland is much cooler than Manchester--in fact, Portland might be my favorite city in all of New England. And I've often made the Portsmouth comparison, myself. But what I think really makes Portland so great--if we can continue the NH comparison--is that it's really like a combination of the best (and some of the worst, too) of Portsmouth and Manchester.

Portland has nearly all the quaintness, and at least as much quirkiness, hipness and bustle as Portsmouth. Unlike Portsmouth, though, it's also a business and undisputed cultural center for the region. I love Portsmouth, and I see huge (as yet untapped) potential in Manchester, but they split a lot of things to their mutual detriment.

Manchester has most of the business, including a growing cluster of tech start-ups in the Millyard, as mentioned in the Globe last Sunday. Manchester also has the sports teams, it gets most of the big concerts and conventions, and it has one of the best art museums in New England. Of course, it's also much more of a population center than Portsmouth, and has the diverse neighborhoods that go along with that. Portsmouth, on the other hand, has the tourists, the fine dining, the exciting nightlife, the bustling downtown (all the downtown Manchester is pretty busy during the work week), the charm and the history.

Portland has a lot of strengths--a beautiful setting, a healthy distance from but reasonable proximity to Boston, a thriving tourist base, a state government that is much more supportive of urban investments and infrastructure, and so on--but I think one of it's greatest strengths is its relative lack of competition in Maine. Obviously there are other cities, but Portland is the clearly dominant city. In New Hampshire, it's hard to say whether Portsmouth or Manchester would fill that role. That's not to say that Portland and the people who live there haven't done a remarkable job making it the wonderful city it is today, but I think comparing Manchester to Portland is a bit unfair.

I would, however, love to see Manchester learn from Portland, especially in terms of urban policy. Portland is great and will probably remain untouched among small and mid-size cities in New England, but its leaders and residents are continually working to make a more vibrant place. Portland acts like the city it is, while Manchester continues to compete with neighboring suburbs. Manchester will probably always play second-fiddle to Portsmouth in terms of charming history, quaintness and tourism, but with the right policies and vision, it could build on its unique strengths as Portland and Portsmouth have.
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If Manchester is like the standard mill town, it has standard mill town problems. I'll assume without knowing for sure that it is fairly typical. What you have then in Manchester, and other places like it, including cities in every New England state, is an economic reality that set the places behind the eight-ball, which didn't happen in Portsmouth and happened to a much lesser degree in the Portland area. When the mill jobs evaporated, tens of thousands of people were left without work. They either left the city for greener pastures, or became discouraged members of the workforce, cultivating a culture of resentment at economic circumstances and low-class attitudes (for lack of a better descriptive phrase...define it how you will, but I think this does the trick at getting the message across). If they left, their vacated housing increased supply well beyond demand, lowering rental prices. With rental prices bottoming out, guess who moved in? As if the discouraged workforce members who stayed weren't enough of a challenge, now the poorest of the poor from surrounding communities moved there, because it's the only place they could afford. The landlords, realizing the only way they could make money is to do the bare minimum in upkeep, became slumlords and let the structures slip into disrepair. Civic engagement is difficult in places like this. Many of the houses have probably been demolished, and possess very little potential from a tax valuation perspective to levy taxes necessary for basic public infrastructure if they haven't. Portland has the opposite issue--the second tightest rental market in the country (tied with Chicago). This inflates rental values and prices out the poor. That's why there are a lot of college students and young professionals living downtown (not the super rich, but not the super poor either) instead of what you see in a mill city. Portland is a city built for at the very least 100,000 people, yet it houses only 66,094. The supply and demand are, again, out of synch., with corresponding effects on the type of people around town. Maybe it would be best for Manchester and places like it to buy up apartment buildings and slowly release them onto the market over time, to artificially restrict supply. But this creates a maintenance liability and areas with little activity (never good), so a better alternative would be to tweak zoning and allow businesses to rehab structures and use them for whatever commercial spaces they want. In a recession, this is difficult. It becomes even more difficult when there is a presumed superiority of "green space" or public space which results in many older dilapidated structures being torn down to get turned into never-used community parks. People always want more parks, but in my anecdotal experience these parks as envisioned are romanticized and the actual construction of a park becomes a void in the urban fabric rather than a useful gathering or recreational place. People in crummy cities always want more parks, it seems, than other places, too. Probably this is because if they live in crummy cities or crummy parts of cities, they don't want another building, preferring to avoid more of the same urban attributes that cause the "crummy" designation in the first place. But, in reality, more and better-designed buildings can enhance a place with proper urban design treatments. Most people--planners and architects and engineers, i.e., those responsible for making the decisions--are not in tune with urban design basics, and even when they are it is often difficult to place those concepts into practice within existing frameworks (parking, etc.).

The bottom line in this discussion is, I think, that Manchester and places like it saw greater problems than beautifying the riverwalk or creating quality urbanism downtown. They needed instead to balance the books and raise taxes--creating the competition with the suburbs you referenced. This created a utilitarian downtown, and is also what resulted in a once great city falling into a state of affairs where it is on a roller coaster ride of sorts with respect to successes and failures. That's why a diversified economy is crucial--to avoid the Detroit-like problems faces for decades by mill towns. Starting over again (which is where Manchester and other similar places are at) is difficult when it occurs in context, with plenty of vested interests that exist despite the economic rationale for their initial interest/location having evaporated. More difficult still with the housing problems referenced above, which snow ball into an inability to attract human capital of the sort that makes a place grow in the 21st century. And, add to the mix (in Manchester's case) that the fine dining etc. which exists in Portsmouth practically absorbs the potential to grow the same culture nearby, and you have pretty challenging urban dynamics.

It is important to remember however, that for all of its challenges, Manchester has done quite well. Not that long ago, Portland was viewed as a dump of dumps—with Munhoy Hill within the last decade widely considered a ghetto. The Old Port was a wasteland in the 1970s. Congress Street was a combat zone in the 1990s (boarded up, everywhere). Bayside is still a pit but full of reinvigorating energy. And in 2005 there was an article entitled “Soaring Beyond Us” in the paper about how Portland could learn from Manchester. So, Manchester is doing quite well, and Portland is lucky it has the right mix of ingredients to have come as far as it has.
 
PortlandArch said:
If Manchester is like the standard mill town, it has standard mill town problems. I'll assume without knowing for sure that it is fairly typical. What you have then in Manchester, and other places like it, including cities in every New England state, is an economic reality that set the places behind the eight-ball, which didn't happen in Portsmouth and happened to a much lesser degree in the Portland area. When the mill jobs evaporated, tens of thousands of people were left without work. They either left the city for greener pastures, or became discouraged members of the workforce, cultivating a culture of resentment at economic circumstances and low-class attitudes (for lack of a better descriptive phrase...define it how you will, but I think this does the trick at getting the message across). If they left, their vacated housing increased supply well beyond demand, lowering rental prices. With rental prices bottoming out, guess who moved in? As if the discouraged workforce members who stayed weren't enough of a challenge, now the poorest of the poor from surrounding communities moved there, because it's the only place they could afford. The landlords, realizing the only way they could make money is to do the bare minimum in upkeep, became slumlords and let the structures slip into disrepair. Civic engagement is difficult in places like this. Many of the houses have probably been demolished, and possess very little potential from a tax valuation perspective to levy taxes necessary for basic public infrastructure if they haven't. Portland has the opposite issue--the second tightest rental market in the country (tied with Chicago). This inflates rental values and prices out the poor. That's why there are a lot of college students and young professionals living downtown (not the super rich, but not the super poor either) instead of what you see in a mill city. Portland is a city built for at the very least 100,000 people, yet it houses only 66,094. The supply and demand are, again, out of synch., with corresponding effects on the type of people around town. Maybe it would be best for Manchester and places like it to buy up apartment buildings and slowly release them onto the market over time, to artificially restrict supply. But this creates a maintenance liability and areas with little activity (never good), so a better alternative would be to tweak zoning and allow businesses to rehab structures and use them for whatever commercial spaces they want. In a recession, this is difficult. It becomes even more difficult when there is a presumed superiority of "green space" or public space which results in many older dilapidated structures being torn down to get turned into never-used community parks. People always want more parks, but in my anecdotal experience these parks as envisioned are romanticized and the actual construction of a park becomes a void in the urban fabric rather than a useful gathering or recreational place. People in crummy cities always want more parks, it seems, than other places, too. Probably this is because if they live in crummy cities or crummy parts of cities, they don't want another building, preferring to avoid more of the same urban attributes that cause the "crummy" designation in the first place. But, in reality, more and better-designed buildings can enhance a place with proper urban design treatments. Most people--planners and architects and engineers, i.e., those responsible for making the decisions--are not in tune with urban design basics, and even when they are it is often difficult to place those concepts into practice within existing frameworks (parking, etc.).

The bottom line in this discussion is, I think, that Manchester and places like it saw greater problems than beautifying the riverwalk or creating quality urbanism downtown. They needed instead to balance the books and raise taxes--creating the competition with the suburbs you referenced. This created a utilitarian downtown, and is also what resulted in a once great city falling into a state of affairs where it is on a roller coaster ride of sorts with respect to successes and failures. That's why a diversified economy is crucial--to avoid the Detroit-like problems faces for decades by mill towns. Starting over again (which is where Manchester and other similar places are at) is difficult when it occurs in context, with plenty of vested interests that exist despite the economic rationale for their initial interest/location having evaporated. More difficult still with the housing problems referenced above, which snow ball into an inability to attract human capital of the sort that makes a place grow in the 21st century. And, add to the mix (in Manchester's case) that the fine dining etc. which exists in Portsmouth practically absorbs the potential to grow the same culture nearby, and you have pretty challenging urban dynamics.

It is important to remember however, that for all of its challenges, Manchester has done quite well. Not that long ago, Portland was viewed as a dump of dumps—with Munhoy Hill within the last decade widely considered a ghetto. The Old Port was a wasteland in the 1970s. Congress Street was a combat zone in the 1990s (boarded up, everywhere). Bayside is still a pit but full of reinvigorating energy. And in 2005 there was an article entitled “Soaring Beyond Us” in the paper about how Portland could learn from Manchester. So, Manchester is doing quite well, and Portland is lucky it has the right mix of ingredients to have come as far as it has.
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I think you just summed up the problems faced by former mill towns, in general, better than just about anything I've read. That said, I think Manchester is unique in its size, prominence within its state, and location.

I'm not too familiar with the Lewiston/Auburn, but unlike those cities, as well as Lowell, Lawrence, Pawtucket, Fall River, Saco/Biddeford and other New England mill cities, Manchester has the distinction of being the largest city in its state. That's not trivial--for more than a century, Manchester has been the financial, business and philanthropic capital of New Hampshire, in addition to being a mill town. That's a much different dynamic and adds another dimension than most other mill towns.

Also unlike almost every other mill town, as well as other prominent New England cities, including Boston, Hartford, Providence, Portland and Portsmouth, Manchester has never experienced substantial population decline. In fact, its population has declined only twice (1930 and 1970) and never by more than 2%. That doesn't mean that it hasn't suffered some of the absentee/slumlord problems and changing demographics that you mentioned, as many middle-class and affluent families moved to neighboring suburbs, or at the very least to far-flung neighborhoods on the city's fringe. But it has never suffered the same surplus housing and abandoned buildings of many cities that have emptied out. In fact, while I don't at all dispute that Portland is a more desirable place to live, as of September 2011, Manchester had a lower (4.43%) residential vacancy rate than Portland (7.52%).

Also unlike some mill cities, notably Lewiston/Auburn and Saco/Biddeford, not to mention far northern towns like Berlin, NH, Manchester is not isolated at all from major metropolitan areas. Once New Hampshire restores commuter rail service (which despite political setbacks, still enjoys 75% support statewide), Manchester will be even more accessible to Boston, and the Merrimack Valley (Manchester, Nashua and Concord) will be even more integrated. And the oft-repeated line about Manchester being "an hour from everywhere"--beaches, mountains, lakes, Boston--is a benefit, in addition to everything within and just outside the city.

Of course, that proximity to Boston, as well as other New Hampshire cities (Nashua and Concord each being less than half the distance from Manchester to Portsmouth), is a blessing and a curse. Manchester is both far enough away from Boston to be its own place, while being close enough that people can commute into the larger city for work, entertainment and so on. Portland, twice as far from Boston, feels a bit more self-sufficient and doesn't need to compete as much with Boston, let alone other satellite cities like Providence, and seaports like Portsmouth. But for a former mill town, I think that proximity is essential for a strong future.

And while Portsmouth is the undisputed culinary, historical, artistic and tourist urban hub of the state, Manchester is a strong contender as a dual cultural capital (perhaps along with Concord). With its theaters, museums, art college and cultural organizations, Manchester makes up for its relative lack of art galleries that populate Portsmouth. And the growing art college, NHIA, is leading to a visible increase in artists and art happenings around Manchester. Again, unlike in Maine, Mass or Vermont, the cultural and artistic center is spread around--between Manchester and Portsmouth especially, but Nashua and Concord also play parts--and that can make it feel a bit disjointed, but I can't think of any other mill town that can claim such a role.

Manchester is also unique (to the best of my knowledge) in its response to the collapse of its mills, previously owned by out-of-state (Boston) investors. When the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company went bankrupt in the 1930s, the city purchased the Millyard and diversified the manufacturers housed in it. Of course, a second decline led to widespread "urban renewal" and demolition of the iconic Millyard from the 1960s to the 1980s, and the recession that hit NH particularly hard in the early 1990s led to widespread retail and office vacancies downtown. Since then, I'd say that Manchester has been much more successful than any other mill town in building its own resurgence, through a combination of public investment, infrastructure improvement, civic pride, attracting businesses and the arts, supporting downtown retail and dining, and the resultant interest in living and working in the city.

It has had a mix of successful and misguided policy when it comes to urban design and planning. The city's planning and economic development departments have come up with some very good plans, including form-based codes and embracing mixed-use development. There is no minimum parking requirement whatsoever in the downtown, and a few years ago the City created a new zoning designation for "neighborhood centers" throughout the city, with zoning that mimics the downtown on a smaller scale. Tax abatements are available for landlords and owners who enhance their buildings in some of the city's less desirable neighborhoods. On the other hand, the current and previous mayor have done little (read: nothing) to support the restoration of commuter rail, they have allowed suburban-style development on city-owned land near the city center, they have supported housing policies that favor low-density in urban neighborhoods, and most critically they have lacked the urban vision of former mayor Bob Baines, who oversaw the height of the city's resurgence from 2000-2006.

Obviously, the economic downturn has stalled some of Manchester's momentum in the past few years, and it doesn't have the tourist base of Portland or Portsmouth to fall back on. But I wouldn't describe Manchester as crummy or starting over, in the same way as many other mill towns. Manchester was there for sure, but that was back in the 1990s. It has come a long way, just as Portland and Portsmouth have. And it has continued to do so even in the past few years. It's still behind those two cities, but it's nowhere near the bottom.

Manchester has a lot of work to do, but at this point it's mostly on building on its strengths and the success of the last decade-and-a-half. Despite being second to Portsmouth, Manchester has a thriving and increasingly interesting dining scene downtown, more people are choosing to live downtown--whether above retail space, in new buildings like the one at Elm and Bridge, in former boardinghouses and rowhouses, or soon in the first mill to be converted to high-end apartments. And while there's still a relatively high vacancy rate for office space downtown, the Millyard is abuzz with tech start-ups and other businesses.

The trick is going to be convincing more people not only to start or move their businesses to Manchester's city center over places like Boston, Cambridge and Portsmouth (not to mention the suburbs), but to get them to live and shop downtown and in the city center, as well. Currently, it seems like young people in Vermont and Maine move to Burlington and Portland, respectively. In New Hampshire, most college graduates seem to move to Portsmouth (or the Seacoast) or Boston. Manchester needs to attract and retain them. While there are some very nice neighborhoods not far from downtown, the neighborhoods just to the east and south are not very desirable, and lacks the very desirable neighborhoods like Munjoy Hill or the West End in Portland.

Manchester has many of the problems as other mill towns, and it faces greater competition in close proximity than Portland, but it also has unique strengths. With the right vision and policies, it can build on the strengths, and continue to put a positive light on the moniker, "former mill town."
 
So it looks like they're already prepping the empty lot next to Five Guys for the hotel. Talked to a guy tonight and he said they just have to wait for the lease to run out and they're already working on digging and locating stuff underground. Again, hope they have some serious noise proof windows.
 
grittys457 said:
So it looks like they're already prepping the empty lot next to Five Guys for the hotel. Talked to a guy tonight and he said they just have to wait for the lease to run out and they're already working on digging and locating stuff underground. Again, hope they have some serious noise proof windows.
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I noticed that too. But I wonder to what extent this is just prep work versus serious pre-construction work. There are no approvals I'm aware of for a hotel on that lot, although I know Shinberg Construction did some master planning for the site a while back and I have heard rumors (not verifiable) about a hotel envisioned for that site. A great location, and the people who rent there won't need the windows because (a) they'll either be out all night, so that's why they stay there, or (b) they'll complain about the bars as if they came after the hotel and try to shut them down, like the Portland Harbor.
 
FrankLloydMike said:
I think you just summed up the problems faced by former mill towns, in general, better than just about anything I've read. That said, I think Manchester is unique in its size, prominence within its state, and location.

I'm not too familiar with the Lewiston/Auburn, but unlike those cities, as well as Lowell, Lawrence, Pawtucket, Fall River, Saco/Biddeford and other New England mill cities, Manchester has the distinction of being the largest city in its state. That's not trivial--for more than a century, Manchester has been the financial, business and philanthropic capital of New Hampshire, in addition to being a mill town. That's a much different dynamic and adds another dimension than most other mill towns.

Also unlike almost every other mill town, as well as other prominent New England cities, including Boston, Hartford, Providence, Portland and Portsmouth, Manchester has never experienced substantial population decline. In fact, its population has declined only twice (1930 and 1970) and never by more than 2%. That doesn't mean that it hasn't suffered some of the absentee/slumlord problems and changing demographics that you mentioned, as many middle-class and affluent families moved to neighboring suburbs, or at the very least to far-flung neighborhoods on the city's fringe. But it has never suffered the same surplus housing and abandoned buildings of many cities that have emptied out. In fact, while I don't at all dispute that Portland is a more desirable place to live, as of September 2011, Manchester had a lower (4.43%) residential vacancy rate than Portland (7.52%).

Also unlike some mill cities, notably Lewiston/Auburn and Saco/Biddeford, not to mention far northern towns like Berlin, NH, Manchester is not isolated at all from major metropolitan areas. Once New Hampshire restores commuter rail service (which despite political setbacks, still enjoys 75% support statewide), Manchester will be even more accessible to Boston, and the Merrimack Valley (Manchester, Nashua and Concord) will be even more integrated. And the oft-repeated line about Manchester being "an hour from everywhere"--beaches, mountains, lakes, Boston--is a benefit, in addition to everything within and just outside the city.

Of course, that proximity to Boston, as well as other New Hampshire cities (Nashua and Concord each being less than half the distance from Manchester to Portsmouth), is a blessing and a curse. Manchester is both far enough away from Boston to be its own place, while being close enough that people can commute into the larger city for work, entertainment and so on. Portland, twice as far from Boston, feels a bit more self-sufficient and doesn't need to compete as much with Boston, let alone other satellite cities like Providence, and seaports like Portsmouth. But for a former mill town, I think that proximity is essential for a strong future.

And while Portsmouth is the undisputed culinary, historical, artistic and tourist urban hub of the state, Manchester is a strong contender as a dual cultural capital (perhaps along with Concord). With its theaters, museums, art college and cultural organizations, Manchester makes up for its relative lack of art galleries that populate Portsmouth. And the growing art college, NHIA, is leading to a visible increase in artists and art happenings around Manchester. Again, unlike in Maine, Mass or Vermont, the cultural and artistic center is spread around--between Manchester and Portsmouth especially, but Nashua and Concord also play parts--and that can make it feel a bit disjointed, but I can't think of any other mill town that can claim such a role.

Manchester is also unique (to the best of my knowledge) in its response to the collapse of its mills, previously owned by out-of-state (Boston) investors. When the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company went bankrupt in the 1930s, the city purchased the Millyard and diversified the manufacturers housed in it. Of course, a second decline led to widespread "urban renewal" and demolition of the iconic Millyard from the 1960s to the 1980s, and the recession that hit NH particularly hard in the early 1990s led to widespread retail and office vacancies downtown. Since then, I'd say that Manchester has been much more successful than any other mill town in building its own resurgence, through a combination of public investment, infrastructure improvement, civic pride, attracting businesses and the arts, supporting downtown retail and dining, and the resultant interest in living and working in the city.

It has had a mix of successful and misguided policy when it comes to urban design and planning. The city's planning and economic development departments have come up with some very good plans, including form-based codes and embracing mixed-use development. There is no minimum parking requirement whatsoever in the downtown, and a few years ago the City created a new zoning designation for "neighborhood centers" throughout the city, with zoning that mimics the downtown on a smaller scale. Tax abatements are available for landlords and owners who enhance their buildings in some of the city's less desirable neighborhoods. On the other hand, the current and previous mayor have done little (read: nothing) to support the restoration of commuter rail, they have allowed suburban-style development on city-owned land near the city center, they have supported housing policies that favor low-density in urban neighborhoods, and most critically they have lacked the urban vision of former mayor Bob Baines, who oversaw the height of the city's resurgence from 2000-2006.

Obviously, the economic downturn has stalled some of Manchester's momentum in the past few years, and it doesn't have the tourist base of Portland or Portsmouth to fall back on. But I wouldn't describe Manchester as crummy or starting over, in the same way as many other mill towns. Manchester was there for sure, but that was back in the 1990s. It has come a long way, just as Portland and Portsmouth have. And it has continued to do so even in the past few years. It's still behind those two cities, but it's nowhere near the bottom.

Manchester has a lot of work to do, but at this point it's mostly on building on its strengths and the success of the last decade-and-a-half. Despite being second to Portsmouth, Manchester has a thriving and increasingly interesting dining scene downtown, more people are choosing to live downtown--whether above retail space, in new buildings like the one at Elm and Bridge, in former boardinghouses and rowhouses, or soon in the first mill to be converted to high-end apartments. And while there's still a relatively high vacancy rate for office space downtown, the Millyard is abuzz with tech start-ups and other businesses.

The trick is going to be convincing more people not only to start or move their businesses to Manchester's city center over places like Boston, Cambridge and Portsmouth (not to mention the suburbs), but to get them to live and shop downtown and in the city center, as well. Currently, it seems like young people in Vermont and Maine move to Burlington and Portland, respectively. In New Hampshire, most college graduates seem to move to Portsmouth (or the Seacoast) or Boston. Manchester needs to attract and retain them. While there are some very nice neighborhoods not far from downtown, the neighborhoods just to the east and south are not very desirable, and lacks the very desirable neighborhoods like Munjoy Hill or the West End in Portland.

Manchester has many of the problems as other mill towns, and it faces greater competition in close proximity than Portland, but it also has unique strengths. With the right vision and policies, it can build on the strengths, and continue to put a positive light on the moniker, "former mill town."
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You’re right, and that’s why Manchester is such a better place to visit or live than those other cities. But it still has the same challenges as those cities, regardless of the greater extent to which it has counterbalanced them with success in other respects. Just noting it for the record so we can view Manchester in light of the context from which it emerged and not just expect it to be a better place than it perhaps can be (at this time), when Portland may be a cooler city because of a unique combination of unplanned factors as much as anything done proactive on its behalf. Many people say Portland is a great city in spite of itself (indicating it just sort of got the right mix of factors, one way or another, unrelated to city planning).

You are also right about the population decline, but you have to look at the demographics at a micro level as much as a macro level – how many people are full of social/human/intellectual capital? How many are just looking for cheap housing or to evade Massachusetts taxes? I’m not making any conclusions here, just saying it’s something to look at. Your quote of the residential vacancy is interesting, and I believe it (Manchester is denser, and so are its suburbs, on average, and it lies at the northern terminus of the Bos-Wash), but I was referring to historical trends, many of which apply in the most detrimental fashion to rental units (instead of the more broad “residential” units). The population could have stayed the same, or even increased, but the demographic shifts in Manchester were as great if not greater than anywhere else. At the risk of stating the obvious, it was a mill powerhouse, one of the largest in the world, and when those jobs evaporated overnight, it left tens of thousands of skilled workers, who were confident and had upper middle class purchasing power, without jobs and without self-esteem. If they stayed, this likely created a culture of hostility in some instances toward economic realities, and if they moved, they left a huge over-supply of housing which likely turned into rental units, and what rental units/workforce housing that already existed probably bottomed out and became attractive to a much lower class population (class as a proxy for income, or vice versa). I’m not saying it was the only shift happening, but it happened, just like everywhere else, and this needs to be recognized in any attempt to understand the City today. It may be leaps and bounds ahead of Lawrence for the reasons you mentioned, but it may be a few paces behind Portland for the reasons I mentioned.

As for the arts center, I agree Manchester has some positive assets—never thought otherwise. Providence is perhaps the arts capital of New England, and itself was a mill town (and like Manch, the largest in the state and also equidistant from Boston). Lewiston is beginning to be this way, too, with some fantastic ideas for the riverfront art museum (really, check out the renderings). Museum LA, as its called, won’t probably be as magnificent as an actual L.A. art museum, but for a mill city it represents progressive thinking unlike other parts of the State around it. The one thing all mill cities have going for them is that they are just that, cities. And today, good quality cities are hard to build, so the mill cities may be ideally situated for at least a segment of the market.

As for the re-use of the mill spaces, you’re probably right. But I am attempting to highlight why, despite these successes, Manchester is still, even in your opinion, behind a place like Portland or Portsmouth in some quality of life areas. I think it has to do with the demographic shifts resulting from evaporation of its economic base, still felt today despite a plethora of planning and redevelopment successes.


Let me be clear, I’m not saying Manchester is crummy (but it does have crummy parts, what city doesn’t? Some people even like those parts). Those crummy parts are the areas that we want to, by and large, see improved, and if there are more or less in one city compared to another, that’s probably due to larger trends than it is to one person or department at the City, that’s my only point.

You are right about the trick being to get people to move from Boston etc. to Mancehster…the only way to do that in my opinion is to make it a destination, focused on people. For that to take place, the central business district should be grown in a more cohesive manner (more of that 9 story apartment building in terms of urban scale…the one on the corner of Elm and some other (I don’t think it’s bridge but it may be?) street. And lots of pedestrian amenities. That’s what people in those other places have, and what Manchester needs more of. Some fine grained urban form and detail that is consistent for several blocks (as opposed to a high rise here or there) might do wonders. I don’t think it’s a longshot for Manch, not by any means.
Lastly, I should note that not all of Munjoy Hill is desirable. There are still swaths of it that people would consider run down and slummy. The main thorough fare (Congress) has rebounded, quite well, and is doing great. The Eastern Prom and India Street (close by) are doing great too. I think the emphasis in Manchester should be on its future, as you said, not its past as a former mill town, but when someone says Manchester is behind Portland (as you did), it is important to remember why. And it’s because of the mill jobs leaving so quickly, in my opinion.
 
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The guy who told me services all the buildings in canal plaza. He knows what's going on down there. I'm not sure exactly whose lease is running out but that's what he said. They've already dug under looking for electrical shit which explains why they were working on that the other day. It's paved over again.

I tell you what stretch needs a little tlc. The sidewalk and area directly across the street on the fore street side of the Jordan's meat development. Really ghetto for some reason. Somebody make a real sidewalk please
 
Are you talking about this lot? I don't remember hearing anything about this anywhere.

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If so, that's awesome news! This parking lot on the corner and the electrical substation have annoyed me for years since this corner should be extremely desirable real estate.
 
Yeah, that's the right area. There has been some master planning done for it by the owner, who said he wanted to better integrate the property with the Old Port when he purchased it, and I've heard rumors (nothing more than rumors) of a hotel for that site, but nothing has been proposed or approved.
 
Post on Munjoy Hill News today about a proposal by Portland Yacht Services / Phineas Sprague Jr. They are looking to purchase the old polluted lot off of West Commercial Street next to the Casco Bay Bridge and turn it into a ship yard similar to what they have on the Eastern Waterfront. Seems like a smart use for this land. Drawing from the post:

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The PPH has an article today about the hotel proposal/idea at the corner of Fore and Union Streets. It sounds like this is just the parking lot portion of the lot, and doesn't include the electric company's equipment area. I like the idea of building something new that doesn't take up an entire block. Formal designs have not been submitted yet.

Developer proposes new hotel in Old Port
But the chamber's president objects, saying the $13 million hotel could add to already low occupancy rates.

PORTLAND – A proposal for a new $13 million hotel that would add 124 rooms to the Old Port is renewing an old debate about how many hotel rooms the city can sustain.

Plans for the Canal Plaza Hotel call for a seven-story building on what's now a small parking lot at the corner of Fore and Union streets. The building would have one retail space on the corner and six floors of rooms.

Each seventh-floor room, overlooking Union and Fore streets, would have an outdoor patio.

The project is being proposed by Cow Plaza Hotel LCC, which is affiliated with East Brown Cow. The company is represented by Greg Shinberg of Shinberg Consultants.
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http://www.pressherald.com/news/developer-proposes-new-hotel-in-old-port_2012-09-01.html
 
Great location and it will fill in a prime parcel of property that has been empty for too many decades. I have the utmost respect for Barbara Whitten but hopefully she understands that only the fittest survive in the lodging business and her job is to bring visitors and conventions into the city. Now she will have another first class hotel along with a renovated Westin to help market Portland. If the Thompson's Point project gets developed, it will be a positive boost to all hotels and occupancy rates should remain stable. Occupancy numbers in all northeast cities suffer during the winter with the exception of the ski resorts but they make up for it in the summer and fall.

And if I had to choose between two proposals, I would pick this site for a new hotel and market the Press Herald buildings as refurbished attorney/professional offices due to it's close proximity to the court houses and City Hall. Or maybe a regional bank could be convinced to move their headquarters downtown similar to The Bank of Maine taking over Two Canal Plaza? I am just not totally convinced a hotel will work in that location. Filling the nearly 80,000 sf of vacant office space in One Monument Square is a higher priority to me than the Gannett Block.
 
Would be nice from an urban design perspective to see something here because it completes a major area. I think the height is appropriate too, because it rises above the Fore St. buildings but is below Canal Plaza, so it is a stepped skyline.

Also, some avesta housing progress
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