Portland Public Market Expected to Close
An out-of-state investment group has signed an agreement to acquire Libra Foundation?s Portland real estate holdings. The investment group has no interest in operating the Public Market.
An out-of-state investment group signed an agreement last week to acquire the Libra Foundation?s Portland real estate holdings. Although details of the purchase?such as the name of the investment group and the purchase price for the properties remain unclear?the deal is expected to be the most expensive real estate transaction in Portland's history. The sale is expected to close within 60 days.
The agreement includes seven properties?three Canal Plaza office buildings; the Fore Street parking garage and an adjacent property; 465 Congress Street; and the Portland Public Market.
According to Libra Foundation sources, the new buyers have no interest in operating the Portland Public Market which has remained unprofitable since opening in 1998. The Libra economic development project was designed to help farmers and small-business people and extend economic development into the city's Bayside neighborhood.
Libra Foundation announced last February that it intended to sell its properties, including the Portland Public Market. Since that time several market vendors have gone out of business or have made plans to leave the building. Four current or past vendors--Maine Beer & Beverage Co., K. Horton's Specialty Foods, A Country Bouquet and Borealis Breads--have come forward with plans to develop a new public market later this year at Monument Square. The group was awarded a $20,000 planning grant from the Maine Department of Agriculture, a step toward relocating the public market concept to Monument Square. Busy Monument Square--the home of Portland?s Farmers? Market?seems to have
the business and residential traffic to make it an ideal location for the venture.
http://www.maine.gov/agriculture/newsletter/feature_15.htm
the bold section of the above mini article says it all--there was a lack of traffic in that section of town. Though it is very close to downtown, the only people that live around there (and go there, really) are from very low class working class etc type families and neighborhoods. not the type of place where people with lots of cash to throw around visit that often. if it was in the old port, i think it would have gone over much better. people in southern maine do not go downtown for their business, they go to the mall or to outerlying supermarkets. for the most part, that is. things like the market appeal to a select class of hippies living downtown, the occasional resident from the inner ring suburban neighborhoods, but mostly to visiting tourists from up north or out of state----and thos epeople tend to flock toward the old port, nnot cumberland stabenue, as grittys calls it. but also i think its the fact that what they were selling--fruits, spices and veggies etc--was not the type of good that carries a high price tag. so it would be liek trying to pay your mortgage when your only job was operating a lemonade stand at 10 cents a cup. but to be honest, most of my ideas are just speculation, and there could be another underlying reason that i am unaware of.
