South Portland, Maine

West End Apartments on Westbrook Street with a total of 116 units, affordable and market rate from Avesta and designed by Kaplan Thompson. A nice addition to the need for housing with near Passivehaus performance.

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The building that is still under construction will be used to house migrants that have been staying in surrounding hotels in the Maine Mall area. It will not help the affordable housing issues and the market rate needs in this part of South Portland for a long time.
 
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Story in PPH today about PK Realty which owns this land. They are proposing four 18 story towers. Here we go again, another four tower "developer" with unrealistic ideas of what to build in a sensitive neighborhood. And not sure I would want to live next to the existing oil tanks and the tankers that pull up to discharge their crude oil. If the oil tanks were gone, this would be a great site for multiple uses. A bubble topped ferry could go back and forth to the Ocean Gateway Terminal to make it far more viable.

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It would help if waterfront developers would publicize and market public right-of-ways and views when they try and sell huge projects like this. Let the public know that they intend to have public green space, walkways and beautification along with high density residential. That land looks like it has tons of potential....does anyone in Maine "get it"?......*sigh*.
 
okay Karen, where should we build apartments and condos in SOPO? How many people who are opposed live at the Breakwater? I could see a Washington National Place built here that is done right. Last time I checked, there is no oil in the green tanks and oil does not emit vs the sprague on the other side of SOPO. The only oil stored on that side is Gulf Oil which supplies most of the Cumbys in the area.
 
Like I like to say, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." Now, residents in the area and SoPo will be thinking of 4 massive towers with high-priced condos. And, it won't surprise me if the developer uses some horrid off-the-shelf designs to release in the paper, the way that the Federated project in Bayside was done. It should be 4 buildings in varying heights and exteriors with substantial dynamic green spaces on the harbor front and next to Bug Light. It can include affordable units as SoPo has taken in many immigrants who are now living in motels. That's a big feel-good, isn't it? I do think the existing oil tanks and oil tanker dockings kind of bring this location down, way down, but still feasible. They need to solve problems instead of creating ones.
 
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TC_zoid said:
...exteriors with substantial dynamic green spaces on the harbor front and next to Bug Light. It can include affordable units as SoPo has taken in many immigrants who are now living in motels.
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My hunch is that that would violate the spirit of the development (i.e., high-priced exclusive condos).
 
Given that these developers need to go through a zoning change, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were significant conditions of approval placed on the height increase to ensure more affordable housing. The SoPo planning board and/or City Council isn't going to just greenlight something like that without concessions from the developer.
 
Doubt this will get built unless on a much smaller scale. The NIMBY groups have basically shut down Portland Pipe Lines Spring Point terminal.
 
Much of this development's land is behind or adjoining 9 liquid storage tanks (and 2 abandoned empty ones) along with the frequent visits of oil tankers discharging their oil. I don't see higher priced condos here, or certainly over the one-million-dollar mark. But one never really knows with the Portland market. If the tank farm and tankers were eliminated, and with a luxurious ferry connecting to Ocean Gateway, I could see condos here for up to and maybe even over the five-million-dollar mark. I believe that Exxon is the conglomerate land and operations owner of the pipeline facility. It's too bad they can't sell and move the operation further down, or past the bridge. I think if there was a sizable offer for the property, perhaps they would. Bug Light Park is such a gorgeous place to view the peninsula, harbor, and boats. I went to the annual kite event here a few years ago and it was something special for the families to do.
 
PPL still has ships come in but not as much. They come in and still pipe the oil to Canada so the line doesn't go bad. They tried to reverse the flow but was met with opposition because fear runs amuck in SOPO. Tar Sands was the fear!!!! Were they going to actually use Tar Sands? I doubt it, but fear won over the truth. Now traffic jams, pollution, fertilizer, typhoons, the living dead, and Zombies are going to come from this project and cause the Polar Ice Caps to melt.
 
PWMFlyer said:
PPL still has ships come in but not as much. They come in and still pipe the oil to Canada so the line doesn't go bad. They tried to reverse the flow but was met with opposition because fear runs amuck in SOPO. Tar Sands was the fear!!!! Were they going to actually use Tar Sands? I doubt it, but fear won over the truth. Now traffic jams, pollution, fertilizer, typhoons, the living dead, and Zombies are going to come from this project and cause the Polar Ice Caps to melt.
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In regards to the pipeline reversal, I read the entire document the city put up on its website, the one that was its due diligence created by a law firm that they hired. The big scare were the venting towers that would have had to be built, and at least seventy feet in height. The oil coming from Canada would have had fumes and chemicals within it from the fracking. The towers (the document did not estimate the number) would have been lit at the top with a flame. Not a pretty sight.
 
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PWMFlyer said:
PPL still has ships come in but not as much. They come in and still pipe the oil to Canada so the line doesn't go bad. They tried to reverse the flow but was met with opposition because fear runs amuck in SOPO. Tar Sands was the fear!!!! Were they going to actually use Tar Sands? I doubt it, but fear won over the truth. Now traffic jams, pollution, fertilizer, typhoons, the living dead, and Zombies are going to come from this project and cause the Polar Ice Caps to melt.
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You're correct in that right now Suncor (The pipeline's new-ish owner) is only bringing in enough crude to keep the pipeline "wet". They've formally dropped any plans to reverse the flow of the pipeline...and have no plans to actively utilize it. However, it's also unlikely they will abandon it. It's a redundant supply line they may not have a need for, but in the modern volatile oil market...fortunes can change rapidly, and they won't readily get rid of a low-cost asset that could be very useful in a pinch. For instance, the pipeline saw a big but brief surge of use in 2019 when wildfires in Alberta disrupted oil production there

The Gulf terminal (the white tanks) are another matter...They're not connected to any pipeline or rail infrastructure, and exist entirely for local fuel distribution. I wouldn't be too surprised if that facility is closed and sold off within the next 10 years. There are two other fuel terminals in SoPo capable of handling gasoline and diesel (Turners Island and The Sprague Terminal) which have much better road and rail access and are in much more industrial areas . With demand for fossil fuels expected to stagnate and then start to decline by the end of the decade...consolidation will be the name of the game for these fuel terminals in SoPo.

Worth bearing in mind that even if the gulf terminal closes, any redevelopment of that site would need extensive (and expensive) site remediation first to clean up decades of contamination....Don't do petrochemicals, kids.
 
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TC_zoid said:
In regards to the pipeline reversal, I read the entire document the city put up on its website, the one that was its due diligence created by a law firm that they hired. The big scare were the venting towers that would have had to be built, and at least seventy feet in height. The oil coming from Canada would have had fumes and chemicals within it from the fracking. The towers (the document did not estimate the number) would have been lit at the top with a flame. Not a pretty sight.
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Yeah, I really can't imagine Mainer's going for lit towers. I've seen these in PA and they're UGLY AF.
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Love the idea of this for so many reasons. One lesson developers need to learn is how to personalize plans to please an audience, especially when it’s around Portland. You can’t just say I’m going to put 4 18 story buildings in on the water next to a beloved park where there are no towers in the area to begin with. Make sure Sopo residents and surrounding neighborhood residents know the purpose and all of the amenities! This way the idea doesn’t get shot down by the granola that live in the area before you can say One Mississippi.
Be personable, planned out in advance, and up front about your purpose for building these towers on the water and maybe you have some more success with the crowd.
 
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