City armory in 'peril'

A local group places in the building on its endangered list, but its tenant disagrees 

SOUTH PORTLAND — The man who leases the lone South Portland building to grace the inaugural “Places in Peril” list issued last week by Greater Portland Landmarks agrees it “needs extensive work,” but disputes the structure is “at risk of loss.”

In June 2011, Eric Matheson signed a lease with an option to buy on the former Maine Army National Guard building, located on Broadway, at the Casco Bay Bridge “gateway” to the South Portland. The deal runs through May 31, 2016, and includes options for two five-year renewals. In addition to base rent of  $550 per month, Matheson has since December paid 60 percent of gross receipts taken in by Fore River Soundstage LLC, the film production company he runs out of the armory’s cavernous interior.

However, the landmarks group said the former armory, built in 1941, “continues to deteriorate because limited city funding allows only minimal maintenance and repairs.” Moreover, Executive Director Hilary Bassett said, “because there are no historic preservation protections, changes to the building don’t require official review and the building may be at risk of loss or damage in the future development of the site.

“The reason we did this list is to build public awareness of these buildings,” said Bassett. “A lot of people don’t know the story behind these buildings and we felt it was important to bring that information forward so people would know why these buildings matter.

“These properties are what I would describe as at a tipping point,” she said. “They are at a risk of loss. They could fall into ruin, or they could be revitalized and made an important part of the area’s future.”

The “Places in Peril” list mimics the “Endangered Buildings” list issued annually by Maine Preservation for the past 15 years, said Bassett. In all, 26 properties were nominated for consideration, including “a number of highly significant and important” sites in both South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. Bassett declined Monday to name any of the local lots considered, other than the armory.

“Right now, what we want to do is build awareness in these places that have been named and, hopefully, by doing that, some good solutions can come forward,” she said, noting that three of the six sites named along with the armory are for sale.

“Mainly, we want to see owners who want to care for the buildings, someone who is sympathetic to historic preservation,” said Bassett.

But Matheson, the most likely future owner of the armory, faults the landmarks group for not checking with him before placing his building on its watch list.

“Why would it be in peril? I’ve got a 15-year lease,” he said Monday. “I’m very surprised they came up with something like that and didn’t attempt to contact me. Nobody has talked to me about it at all.”

Still, Matheson acknowledges, “extensive work needs to be done to the exterior of the building.” But that, he said, rests on the city’s shoulders.

“Our intention is not to alter the exterior of this building one bit,” he said. “I do want the exterior restored just the way it was, but I would not expect to have to fund that myself. The only changes that we are going to make are to the interior of the drill hall, which is where we build sets, and to the wing.”

That wing, added in 1960 and not deemed historically significant, is where Matheson plans to build his workshop, “if the roof ever stops leaking.”

South Portland City Manager Jim Gailey said the city spent “about $6,000” last summer to fix the flashings on the roof of the wing.

“It’s just a bunch of tar up there and with the heat and the cold and the heat and the cold, the fix just did not work around the drain spout areas,” he said.

Still, the city has begun to build a reserve fund for future façade work, using its share of the revenue from site rentals. But so far, said Gailey, it hasn’t amounted to much.

“We’re not talking hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point,” he said. “We’re just talking our small cut of a two-day rental for a commercial, or a one-day photo shoot – it might be $70 here, $200 there. We’re not in any position yet to put a new roof on.”

At some point, the city will be obligated to spend that money. Matheson notes that according to his lease contract, once he is able to renovate and sublet office space in the front of the building, the city must spend 40 percent of its 60 percent revenue share on outside and structural improvements. However, Matheson said he is “at least two years away” from being able to lure film production companies into the armory.

The issue, Matheson said, is that in the three years it took to put together his lease deal with the city, all of his investors drifted away.

“I’m basically starting from scratch,” he said, ticking off half a dozen small projects over the past year, primarily with Portland-based Groff Films. Matheson’s largest project in the past year was a side job as production designer for “Backgammon,” a $1.3 million independent movie that filmed last summer in Cape Elizabeth. That project employed 29 local people on the crew, but used the armory for equipment staging only.

Staging of a different sort has been a headache for Matheson as the Shaw Brothers trucks that have been working on Ocean Street in Knightville all summer have used the armory’s back lot for parking.

“I don’t think their drivers know how to use forward,” joked Matheson, noting that the beep-beep-beep of trucks in reverse has made it “impossible to do anything that involves sound, except on the weekends.”

That help keep business away, as has the repeated failure of the state Legislature to adopt film industry tax credits, which Matheson believes would bring major studio productions to Maine similar to ones he’s worked in the past, including "Cider House Rules," "Empire Falls" and "Message in a Bottle."

“I’m not as far along on the armory as I’d hoped to be at this point,” he said. “But I’m not unhappy. Things are happening. Still, I will need to go to Massachusetts to find work, because they have four big movies about to film there next spring. We’ll never get the big money without those tax credits, and every session that idea dies in committee. I don’t know why.”

In the meantime, Matheson said, the armory needs to be buttoned up by this winter, particularly the west tower, where the roof continues to leak from where a flagpole was dislodged in a storm several years ago.

“There’s a ton of money being spent on that duck pond in Mill Creek Park and not here on this building,” he said. “I feel they have some obligation to at least stop the leak in the flag tower.

“Structurally, the integrity of the steel underneath the tower is questionable at this point,” said Matheson. “It’s not going to crash in tomorrow, but we do get copious amounts of water in the basement every time it rains. I’ve seen it come up within four inches of a 400-amp panel, which would blow a transformer right off a pole.”

Matheson did note that part of the agreement with Shaw Brothers is that they will grade the back lot when they are done and install a pipe to help drain the armory basement.

However, Mayor Patti Smith said any large capital improvement project probably isn’t in the offing.

“I don’t think we have it in our budget,” she said. “I think it’s going to demand a lot of private funding to bring it back to its historical glory. It’s been sitting for quite a while, a lot longer than 2006 when the city bought it, and, unfortunately, that neglect means it’s not as easy as putting a couple of new bricks into the façade.

“We’ve always seen the armory as an historically significant place, but nobody’s come in with big money to bring it up to snuff,” said Smith. “It really needs some work. In this economy, we haven’t seen a lot of interest because people don’t have that kind of cash.”

Last year, the council voted to use $100,000 in downtown TIF funds to replace windows, repair crumbling masonry, including the front steps, and spruce up decorative keystones adorned with tanks, bullets and grenades, which Bassett said is a highlight of the building’s charm.

However, Gailey said Tuesday that money was meant as a local match for an Office of Community Development grant South Portland failed to get.

“There was maybe $3 million available and there were $30 million in requests,” he said. “We haven’t spent the $100,000 from TIF funds as the council’s approval was to leverage another $100,000.”

Although South Portland did not get money from the "Meeting Maine's Downtown Challenge" program, Bassett said there are other opportunities, including a 25 percent tax credit from the state for historic preservation. The armory also is eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, she said, offering her group's help in the form of its staff tax-preservation advisor.

The soundstage concept, she said, is an “excellent” idea for an adaptive re-use of the armory.

“That could be the catalyst to brining more creative economy-type businesses to the area,” said Bassett. “It sounds like he [Matheson] is somebody that we should definitely talk to further.”

Although his concern is with the inside of the armory, Matheson said he’ll be happy to take that call when it comes.

“I’m not in a position to go to a bank at all, so I’ll take all the help I can get,” he said. “As to the city and the outside of the building, I don’t think it’s a matter of them not wanting to do anything, it’s just that their duck pond is bigger than my duck pond.”

A COSER LOOK 


The seven buildings and landscapes, of 26 nominated, named to Greater Portland Landmarks’ inaugural “Places in Peril” list, issues Sept. 20:

• Eastern Cemetery, Congress Street, Portland (1668) – Said to be Portland’s oldest public burial ground.

• House Island, Casco Bay – A 24-acre island at the entrance to Portland Harbor currently for sale, home to Fort Scammell, built in 1808 for harbor defense, but which saw its greatest use as an immigration quarantine station from 1907-1937, when it was dubbed “the Ellis Island of the North.”

• Abyssinian Meeting House, 73 Newbury St., Portland (1828) – Built as a house of worship, described as “the third-oldest standing African-American meeting house in the United States.”

• The Portland Company, 58 Fore St., Portland (1847-1940) – Seven-building complex said to be “the only relatively intact 19th century waterfront industrial site surviving on the Portland peninsula.”

• Grand Trunk Office Building, 1 India St., Portland (1903) – A three-story brick that it is “the only building which survives from the extensive Grand Trunk Railroad complex in Portland.”

• Portland Masonic Temple Grand Lodge, 415 Congress St., Portland (1911) – Said to be “one of the finest examples of Beaux Arts architecture in Maine.” It is also “believe to be Maine’s last original and intact grand lodge building.”

• Maine Army National Guard Armory, Broadway, South Portland (1941) – A significant example of the art deco architectural style and South Portland’s significant role in World War II, the building has been owned by the city since 2006 and is now leased to Fore Rive Soundstage LLC.