Rock Row (née The Ridge, née Dirigo Plaza) | Westbrook, ME

It's not that one. It was in a kind of suburban area. Sorry, I forget where (I had a client whose parents lived nearby). It was more graduated in shape, or pyramid like. The best story from this period in or outside Vegas is the Harmon Hotel. A source I spoke with a while back said it was not the faulty construction for its removal but more that it was designed as such an exclusive and custom hotel that it could not be converted to condos, so they razed it. They couldn't justify the guest room rates at a much lower price. I think this was all done with Saudi oil money. They lost billions. And now they are building "The Line" in their desert. Google that one. Wow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_H... the structure, conducted,on the site in 2023.
 
From the linked article:
The Harmon had significant construction defects that went unnoticed by inspectors until July 2008, with the discovery of faulty rebar installation that was handled by a subcontractor.
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Faulty rebar? In Vegas? Does this make anyone else think of a "Family" owned business that might have been owned by "a friend of mine"?

But that sort of thing doesn't exist in Vegas anymore, of course. And I certainly hope it's entirely off-topic for Rock Row.
 
markhb said:
From the linked article:

Faulty rebar? In Vegas? Does this make anyone else think of a "Family" owned business that might have been owned by "a friend of mine"?

But that sort of thing doesn't exist in Vegas anymore, of course. And I certainly hope it's entirely off-topic for Rock Row.
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This "official word" was probably to assign blame for insurance purposes. Faulty anything can lie in the gray area with construction. Boston's Big Dig has this too. I also remember reading an arch article about this to back up the claim that it was more about the errant planning of a super high end luxury hotel based on insane spending during this time. It would have flopped. The way to get out of it was to lay blame on a contractor to get the insurance payout (gray area). They also had planned it to be higher, and when the signs started about an imminent recession, they stopped it at ten or so floors lower before its final height. When do you ever see something like that? If anything, more floors are added, like what happened with the new addition for Maine Medical Center due to the state of economic or pandemic affairs (more of the latter).
 
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TC_zoid said:
This "official word" was probably to assign blame for insurance purposes. Faulty anything can lie in the gray area with construction. Boston's Big Dig has this too. I also remember reading an arch article about this to back up the claim that it was more about the errant planning of a super high end luxury hotel based on insane spending during this time. It would have flopped. The way to get out of it was to lay blame on a contractor to get the insurance payout (gray area). They also had planned it to be higher, and when the signs started about an imminent recession, they stopped it at ten or so floors lower before its final height. When do you ever see something like that? If anything, more floors are added, like what happened with the new addition for Maine Medical Center due to the state of economic or pandemic affairs (more of the latter).
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Good point... and it makes even more sense when you look at the dates and see that the Boardwalk Holiday Inn was imploded in the summer of 2006, so they were in the midst of construction on this thing (which became the most expensive private construction project in US history) when the 2008 financial crisis happened.
 
Ok, so regardless of whatever happened in Las Vegas, anyone else thinking this is the nail in the coffin for the original vision of Rock Row? What construction firm will agree to work with them going forward?

Waterstone should sell it off to someone that has a clue.
 
The Quarryside marketing video on their website is embarrassingly lowbrow.....a bunch of junky shipping containers on dusty dirt and actors drinking beer and playing cornhole......good grief.
 
So basically a month later - still no new activity on the site. This doesn't bode well.

So much for that cash infusion?
 
If I owned or operated a construction firm, I wouldn't touch it with a 1,000 foot pole. Beyond the obvious "am I going to get paid" question, I can't even imagine the liability insurance hoops to jump through to take over work on a job of this scale that someone else started.
 
I noticed over the weekend that Landry French still have their banners around the site, so maybe it's not as intractable as we thought.
 
The developer is from Massachusetts and has a somewhat sketchy background. He was able to lease the land and came up with some big ideas hoping tenants would jump and spend money, but I think this area needs housing first, or before any big entertainment builds happen. Housing results in residents on site. I don't think he knows what he's doing. I'd find a big housing real estate partner and work with them first.
 
DanielPWM19 said:
It's sad to think the Rock Row development is a flop. It was something to be excited over, but in a sense we all sort of knew not to hold our breaths. Just like the Portland Foreside development, or Midtown, or any number of things we've been disappointed by over the years.
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Why did Rock Row have to become so convoluted? All they had to do was build a mix of condos and apartment buildings.....and an array of retail/dining options that every loves. It's been done before all over the place....what was the freakin problem?
 
mainejeff said:
Why did Rock Row have to become so convoluted? All they had to do was build a mix of condos and apartment buildings.....and an array of retail/dining options that every loves. It's been done before all over the place....what was the freakin problem?
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Suburban retail is cheap, easy to build and starts to turn a profit pretty much straight away. Any business school dropout can develop a strip mall full of national retail chains. Housing requires more complex financing and for a company like Waterstone who only has experience building suburban retail crap....it's probably proven to be more difficult than they expected especially with interest rates and construction costs as they are.
 
It was never intended as primarily a housing project; it's essentially a lifestyle center with some apartments thrown in as frosting. Really, it's exactly what the Westbrook Gateway Commercial zone envisions. I think you're right re: the interest rates and construction costs, plus Covid happened which completely blew up retail, plus they lost Waterfront as a tenant after only one season, which I imagine set back their revenue quite a bit (and of course I have no idea who was on the hook for the improvements that were made to create the venue).
 
They've missed the point here. It shouldn't be for "The People," but for those who desire more exclusivity, and safety. Perhaps a model to follow could be Cayala, Guatemala. There was a front-page story on this planned community yesterday in the NY Times. Google this place. I think I'm going to plan a trip. It's a planned community with de facto walls, sort of, as it's the only real way they can function as such to avoid the "unknown." And several Silicon Valley billionaires are currently planning theirs, not far from San Francisco (California Forever). It's privately controlled and managed so that an irresponsible and socialist leaning city or state Gov has less of a say. I used to read some of the books Frank Lloyd Wright had written on planning communities, or utopias, but many of his ideas do not work in today's world. Some of these ideas were to be built around or within newly envisioned local government buildings. People need to change before that can happen. The city, the Gov, has become too burdensome when relied upon to help. Also, and it is disturbing, a group of Maine legislators are proposing to decriminalize illegal drugs in the state, and a national tabloid picked up this story today (Daily Mail) to hint that Portland, Maine will become the new Portland, Oregon! But we're still far away from that, I hope.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/09/guatemalan-capital-wealthy-haven-city
 
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Covid definitely played a role in some of this falling through but their track record so far has been a pattern of over-promising and under-delivering:

122 room hotel : Stalled
Office building: Stalled
Phase 1 housing: Stalled
14-story Hotel / Event Center: Stalled
Cancer Center / Medical offices: Stalled midway through construction
Transit Center: stalled (That was probably all smoke-and-mirrors in the first place)

I do hope they can make at least some of this a reality, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
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Cosakita18 said:
Covid definitely played a role in some of this falling through but their track record so far has been a pattern of over-promising and under-delivering:

122 room hotel : Stalled
Office building: Stalled
Phase 1 housing: Stalled
14-story Hotel / Event Center: Stalled
Cancer Center / Medical offices: Stalled midway through construction
Transit Center: stalled (That was probably all smoke-and-mirrors in the first place)

I do hope they can make at least some of this a reality, but I'm not holding my breath.
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Unfortunately I feel like Maine always gets the shaft with development.
 
From glass-is-half-full perspective, at least the entire lot hasn't been developed as retail (eventually proposed to be anchored by Wal-Mart), with seemingly as much parking as Gillette Stadium, as the original developer proposed before Waterstone bought it from them: https://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/17/plan-for-large-shopping-center-in-westbrook-shrinks-slightly/

There's still a chance for someone to do something with this if Waterstone unloads it, given it's current configuration and undeveloped land.
 
Dr. StrangeHat said:
From glass-is-half-full perspective, at least the entire lot hasn't been developed as retail (eventually proposed to be anchored by Wal-Mart), with seemingly as much parking as Gillette Stadium, as the original developer proposed before Waterstone bought it from them: https://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/17/plan-for-large-shopping-center-in-westbrook-shrinks-slightly/

There's still a chance for someone to do something with this if Waterstone unloads it, given it's current configuration and undeveloped land.
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That's what I was thinking....is it possible that Waterstone could sell to someone that knows what they are doing?
 
mainejeff said:
That's what I was thinking....is it possible that Waterstone could sell to someone that knows what they are doing?
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The property is now subdivided into numerous distinct pieces that, at least according to what they told the Planning Board, is based on the intended phasing of the project. So, they don't necessarily need to find one buyer for the whole kit & kaboodle, but I have to wonder what's tied to the financing they just secured to finish the medical campus and how the liens tied to the medical campus construction halt were placed, either to the property as a whole or the subdivided sections.

Come to think of it, at the time I found it odd that Waterstone kept going back to the Planning Board to first subdivide and then further refine the subdivisions of the property. In hindsight, and this is pure open speculation, I wonder if they knew they were in trouble a while ago and were trying to break it up to not lose the front sections they already developed.

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I don't think it's possible for this to become a dynamic development for the community now because too many "visionaries" are involved. I would look for another big piece of buildable land. There is a lot of land/trees surrounding the Wells Interstate 95 ramp and Amtrak station. I'd try that. New prestige homes and apartments would be gobbled up quickly because of the much shorter commute to Boston. Add the requisite brewery/tap room, a Starbucks, a Tandem Bakery, a few trendy foodie spots, and a beautiful park/nature walk and it's good to go. Forget the hotel, convention space and movie theatre. Too much uncertainty in that, though an upscale boutique hotel of around 50 rooms might work. Redfern would hit this out of the park.
 
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