Westbrook, ME

It was doomed from the very beginning. You are correct, there is no way Greater Portland could support another 130+ store regional mall. If his arena proposal would have been substantially larger than an 8000 seat capacity it might have been very interesting to see how it would have impacted the renovations to the Civic Center.
 
Mr. Snynder might've had viable idea if the Maine Mall hadn't opened four decades ago. If Nordstrom or Bloomingdales still wants to come in, there's that huge vacant Lowes building at the awkwardly disjointed strip mall named The Shops at Biddeford Center.
 
So yes I've been very against the ability of Westbrook to become a bedroom community of Portland on this thread. I tried to think about why. I think it's so so simple.

Westbrook is not part of greater Portland, not mentally. Trust me, the majority of my days are spent dealing with Westbrookians. They have absolutely no idea of anything that goes on in Portland. They don't know about restaurants, new places, stores, etc. It's not that they just don't know, they don't want to know. I always hear "You couldn't pay me to go intown" or "Why anybody would want to live in Portland I have no idea".

Although bordering with Portland, Westbrook is part of that union of towns to the west like Standish, Buxton, Gorham, etc. You always hear about the two maine, north and south. You have to include the west too. They really want no part of what we have to offer and they are very set in their ways and have more of a country/southern attitude. You flip a switch from hipsters and sushi to Nascar and Dunkin Donuts in a ten minute drive.

So I don't even think da Brook would know how to go about becoming a modern place that would attract young Portland commuters. Somebody brought up Sommerville. It's completely different. Yes that area was rougher but they have a connection to Boston and always have. You couldn't talk to somebody there who didn't know where the hell Hynes convention center or Newbury street was. People in da Brook go to Portland for for concerts and pirates games and then complain about parking on free street.

It's worlds apart. I'm not putting down the Brook, just telling you how it is. They are part of the group that hates us, neighbors or not.
 
Alright alright, ONE person doesn't feel that way.

Maybe they don't all hate Portland but da Brook is indeed part of that collection of towns to the west of it rather than part of Portland. It is night and day, honestly.

The foot traffic in the downtown core is what is the most foolish. It is nothing but chicks in pajama pants, smoking butts, pushing carriages with a mountain dew bottle in the holder, while screaming at their 5 year old 40 feet behind them. The dudes on the streets are all juggalos or thugs with pitbulls and neck tats.

Again, you'd have to make a real commitment to opt for Westbrook as your home if you have a Portland state of mind on how the world is.
 
Sommarnatt said:
Mr. Snynder might've had viable idea if the Maine Mall hadn't opened four decades ago. If Nordstrom or Bloomingdales still wants to come in, there's that huge vacant Lowes building at the awkwardly disjointed strip mall named The Shops at Biddeford Center.
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The Shops at Biddeford Crossing couldn't possibly support an upscale store like Nordstrom or Bloomingdales; they couldn't even support mainstream retailers like Old Navy or Best Buy. And besides, if Macy's felt that Bloomingdales would have worked in the Portland market they would have converted Filene's. Instead Bon-Ton (another mainstream department store) is going in. BTW, Market Basket is in the process on converting the Lowe's in Biddeford to its first Maine supermarket; it will open in late summer/early fall. Here's a rendering:

MktBsktBiddeford_concept.gif



I'm with you on the disjointed Shops at Biddeford Crossing layout; the Marketplace at Augusta (another S.R. Weiner-designed center) is similarly bewildering.

Re: Westbrook, I still think the Snyder parcel can be salvaged for retail. It's outrageous that Portland/Westbrook has had no department store to call its own since Bradlees and Ames went out of business. Walmart tried to build on the old Saunders Brothers property but ran into fierce opposition.
 
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grittys457 said:
Kohls?
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Kohl's is predominantly softlines; I'm talking about a full-line department/discount store where you can get the vast majority of your daily needs under one roof. And I may have conflated Augusta Crossing with The Marketplace at Augusta in my earlier post in this thread, but the layout is still bizarre. Admittedly, terrain plays an issue with that development.
 
Supposedly Market Basket's second store will be in Portland. How we could possibly handle another one, I have no idea.
 
grittys457 said:
Supposedly Market Basket's second store will be in Portland. How we could possibly handle another one, I have no idea.
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Market Basket is taking a wait and see approach to Maine, at least officially, until after Biddeford is open and they have a chance to review operating results. If it's successful there's no doubt they will attempt to expand further into Maine, to the extent that Hannaford will let them. Hannaford is notorious for bringing lawsuits or funding campaigns just to stymie competitors.

As to where Market Basket would locate in Portland, you have to wonder if Lowe's is due for another round of store closures. Does Lowe's do enough business, even with Biddeford closed, to sustain Scarborough and Portland? Beyond the immediate Portland area, North Windham looks ripe for picking; the Lowe's there is dead every time I visit. The Auburn Kmart is on borrowed time and would be an obvious choice as well. Shaw's is circling the drain and will almost certainly close underperforming locations throughout the region if their new owners don't see any hope of a turnaround.
 
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cathandler said:
North Windham looks ripe for picking; the Lowe's there is dead every time I visit.
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I thought the very same thing last weekend when we were there. It was a beautiful day for yard work, so you would assume at least the garden center would be full of people.

Wasn't a Market Basket supposed to be the anchor for the big Morrill's Corner development?

As for the Synder property, I'm just reallly opposed to more retail anywhere in the Greater Portland area. I feel like we're already at full retail saturation, and I despise suburban strip malls. Westbrook Crossing (Kohl's, Shaw's, etc.) is more than enough for Westbrook. It's only a 5-10 minute drive to the mall anyway.

That said, I wouldn't be opposed to a Costco fitting in somewhere off of Larrabee Rd. in between the car dealerships, but not as far into that property as the Walmart was proposed. I think that would be a good fit in that location.
 
" Wasn't a Market Basket supposed to be the anchor for the big Morrill's Corner development?"

Stop N' Shop
 
grittys457 said:
" Wasn't a Market Basket supposed to be the anchor for the big Morrill's Corner development?"

Stop N' Shop
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That's right, Stop & Shop. They pulled out after the Hannaford-funded opposition group raised a stink. It probably wouldn't have happened anyway, as Kennebunk was a disaster for S&S. Hannaford fought the Kennebunk project in court for years and as a last-ditch effort to derail it funded a town referendum that would have prohibited big box retail. Stop & Shop prevailed, but the supermarket only lasted two years (2007-2009) and Hannaford took it over a year later. The Walmart was going to be on William Clarke Drive by the Westbrook Arterial, not Larrabee Road IIRC.
 
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cathandler said:
The Shops at Biddeford Crossing couldn't possibly support an upscale store like Nordstrom or Bloomingdales; they couldn't even support mainstream retailers like Old Navy or Best Buy. And besides, if Macy's felt that Bloomingdales would have worked in the Portland market they would have converted Filene's. Instead Bon-Ton (another mainstream department store) is going in. BTW, Market Basket is in the process on converting the Lowe's in Biddeford to its first Maine supermarket; it will open in late summer/early fall. Here's a rendering:
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Yeah my suggestion to the upper-class retailers was tongue-in-cheek. I'm glad to hear Market Basket is going in there.

grittys457 said:
Supposedly Market Basket's second store will be in Portland. How we could possibly handle another one, I have no idea.
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I wouldn't mind having another option. Shaws and Hannaford take my business for granted and Wal-Mart is a mess that I abhor visiting. Trader Joes and Whole Foods have unique, high quality (expensive) products, but they only stock about two-thirds of what I actually want to buy.

cathandler said:
I'm with you on the disjointed Shops at Biddeford Crossing layout; the Marketplace at Augusta (another S.R. Weiner-designed center) is similarly bewildering.
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Is the idea behind these layouts that people only go and visit one merchant per visit? The Augusta one has sidewalks, I suppose so the carless can make their way up to Kohl's with less chance of getting run over, but the layout of the entire site is so ridiculous to accommodate gargantuan parking lots that seem to be 150% the that size they need to be.
 
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cathandler said:
I remain hopeful that Westbrook will get a full-line department store as part of this project.
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I've said it before in this thread, but I really hope that is not the case. I don't see Greater Portland needing any more retail. I'd rather see a dense office development on the Westbrook Arterial side of the property and a dense old-style-neighborhood residential development (houses close to the street, tree lines streets, no cul-de-sac's, etc.) on the Stroudwater Street side of the property, with a decent buffer of preserved open space in between. I know the latter would probable get a ton of opposition from the neighbors of the property, but at the very least I hope JB Brown concentrates on non-retail development on the arterial side of this property.
 
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