The Casco | 201 Federal Street | Portland

What a dream scenario it would be to replace that garage with a creatively designed 25 story residential tower (apartments). Check out Vancouver, B.C. It's far more tall residential towers than office buildings going back to the 80s. It's the opposite of the American downtown office building core with low rise suburban residential. And building taller in the suburbs brings the rents down and compels people to live there, thus reducing rents downtown. It spreads out the density and rental costs. More and more of us are not getting married and not having children, so density is a more attractive lifestyle. If Rock Row did that, I could see it helping to reduce rents in downtown Portland. But no, it will be large footprint 3 and 4 story buildings. Maine is not a fun time for most in the winter, or if you don't ski. Walking a distance is painful.
 
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Goggle Earth has been refreshed if anyone is interested.
 
Along with the remaining Portland Square parcels and the dirt lots abutting Center Street. Am still baffled that the parking lot bounded by Free, Brown and Center Streets has not been developed during the past half century!
 
The office space built downtown in the 80's was for the most part either signature home offices for financial institutions, or built for Unum which at the time was engaged in splitting up its various profit centers. Unum was bought out by Provident and their operations either moved to Chattanooga or pulled back to the Blueberry Hill campus, and most of Portland's banks were fully absorbed by national firms in the 90's when the old interstate banking restrictions were done away with at the national level which left far fewer executive functions to take place in those buildings. Essentially, the '87 market crash followed by bank deregulation (and increased buildout of suburban office space like Southborough, and Darling Ave.) crushed Class A office space demand downtown for many years afterward. There was no need to build more when what was there was leasing at a reduced rate, and there was no market for downtown condos (and no profit in large-scale apartment construction) at the time.
 
markhb said:
The office space built downtown in the 80's was for the most part either signature home offices for financial institutions, or built for Unum which at the time was engaged in splitting up its various profit centers. Unum was bought out by Provident and their operations either moved to Chattanooga or pulled back to the Blueberry Hill campus, and most of Portland's banks were fully absorbed by national firms in the 90's when the old interstate banking restrictions were done away with at the national level which left far fewer executive functions to take place in those buildings. Essentially, the '87 market crash followed by bank deregulation (and increased buildout of suburban office space like Southborough, and Darling Ave.) crushed Class A office space demand downtown for many years afterward. There was no need to build more when what was there was leasing at a reduced rate, and there was no market for downtown condos (and no profit in large-scale apartment construction) at the time.
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In the 80's Unum had one site in downtown Portland on Congress. The merger (no one wanted to think of it as a buyout but it was) did not come until the early 2000's and some of the operations were transferred to one of many locations including Chattanooga, Worcester, New York, South Carolina and Georgia. I was employed at Unum during those tumultuous years.
 
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I was really disappointed when Union Mutual left downtown and relocated their operations to outer Congress Street. And was even more annoyed when they merged with Provident and decided to make Chattanooga the new location of their headquarters in 2002! Then I became highly perturbed when they built a new building in downtown Worcester instead of reinvesting in their original home of Portland! Other than those few issues, I'm okay with UNUM. :)
 
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PlantArch said:
In the 80's Unum had one site in downtown Portland on Congress. The merger (no one wanted to think of it as a buyout but it was) did not come until the early 2000's and some of the operations were transferred to one of many locations including Chattanooga, Worcester, New York, South Carolina and Georgia. I was employed at Unum during those tumultuous years.
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I could be wrong, but wasn't Unum the original main tenant in the MEMIC building when it was rehabbed? That's the downtown building I was mainly thinking of, although I'm pretty sure that the CEO's office stayed downtown, in the penthouse suite in either One Monument Square or One City Center. I remember reading that the city fought for them to keep that much downtown. And Unum definitely spread out in the suburbs; I worked for a time in 123 Darling Ave. and the north end of that building has walls a foot thick because they were built as squash courts.

Portlander said:
I was really disappointed when Union Mutual left downtown and relocated their operations to outer Congress Street. And was even more annoyed when they merged with Provident and decided to make Chattanooga the new location of their headquarters in 2002! Then I became highly perturbed when they built a new building in downtown Worcester instead of reinvesting in their original home of Portland! Other than those few issues, I'm okay with UNUM. :)
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You left out "when they deserted their signature building on Congress St. and the Turnpike and decamped to one of the smaller buildings down back!" :D

I wish Portland still had prominent stand-out signage like that Union Mutual sign, or the old State Theater vertical sign, or the neon Rogers' Jewelers canopy.
 
Not sure if they had some employees in the old Hannaford warehouse (MEMIC) but they did have their executive offices in the penthouse of One City Center for a few years. And I agree Mark, losing UNUM, Maine Bonding and Casualty and all of the local bank headquarters like Casco, Portland Savings, Canal, Norstar and Maine Savings Bank (ONE) was part of the corporate merger climate that all cities were dealing with during the 80's and 90's. They are now replaced with signage by Bank of America,TD, Key, M&T and large law firms. I am pleased that the EASTLAND neon on top of the Westin was saved. :)
 
Portlander said:
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I was really disappointed when Union Mutual left downtown and relocated their operations to outer Congress Street. And was even more annoyed when they merged with Provident and decided to make Chattanooga the new location of their headquarters in 2002! Then I became highly perturbed when they built a new building in downtown Worcester instead of reinvesting in their original home of Portland! Other than those few issues, I'm okay with UNUM. :)
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There was no need to invest in their former home office on outer Congress because they had just built a beautiful third building in Portland (HO3). I worked out of HO3 but traveled to the Worcester location to train new employees. The Worcester location was truly subpar and needed to be updated desperately.
 
The name for the new tower must be AUCOCISCO which was the Abenaki name for Casco Bay and means "place for herons". The only other logical choice using the given clues would be ABENAKI itself which would continue Redfern's Native American (Hiawatha) naming history as a tribute.
 
Portlander said:
The name for the new tower must be AUCOCISCO which was the Abenaki name for Casco Bay and means "place for herons". The only other logical choice using the given clues would be ABENAKI itself which would continue Redfern's Native American (Hiawatha) naming history as a tribute.
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Looks like you were right: https://liveredfern.com/buildings/aucocisco/
 
And the street where I live has the word Heron in it, how ironic! Congrats Max, you were the first to actually verify the official name of Maine's tallest building. (y)
 
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I've got a question. Going up the elevators, will there be a 19th floor button to push? I lived and worked in Manhattan for a few years, and my apartment building and numerous others I've been to all did not have a 13th floor, so the 13th became the 14th, though it was de facto, still the 13th. Why are we still so superstitious? (And hotels are even more so.)
 
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I was on a cruise in May and the ship also skipped from the 12th to 14th floor.
 
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