South Portland officials hope to
bring 350 jobs, 240 housing units to the 31-acre shopping area by 2035
SOUTH PORTLAND — The Mill Creek shopping area in South
Portland, innovative in the 1950s as the site of Maine’s first strip mall, is
now being eyed as a model for mixed-use development in the 21st
century.
The 31.58-acre area, made up of 33
lots bounded by the Casco Bay Bridge, the Greenbelt Trail, Ocean Street and E
Street, is being targeted to take on 10 percent of the growth South Portland is
expected to experience by 2035. That means finding a way to accommodate up to
175,000 square feet of additional commercial space, as well as 240 housing
units, in what is now a sea of parking lots surrounding several retail islands,
with virtually no residential use.
Finding a way to manage that surge is
vital to South Portland, officials say, given its interest in regulating an
orderly transformation of the area into what some see as a potential Gen Y
hotspot to rival Portland’s Old Port district, while also encouraging the new
construction – and thus new taxable property – needed to fund increasing
budgets and a host of public services.
“The thing about South Portland is, we
don’t have a lot of raw land left,” City Councilor Jerry Jalbert said at a Dec.
10 goal-setting session with his peers. “So, when you’re talking economic
development, it’s truly more about redevelopment. What we need to look at is
increasing taxes per acres, so we can broaden the tax base.”
“Vertical development would increase
the tax base,” said Councilor Patti Smith. “If you can’t build out, build up. I’m
thinking how high could you go?”
Answering that question, which
represents something of a sea change in thinking, not to mention the city
skyline, is the charge of Sustain Southern Maine, a partnership of 41
municipalities, schools, nonprofits and planning agencies led by the Greater
Portland Council of Governments.
In October 2010, that group won a $1.6
million Sustainable Communities Planning Grant from the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. Under the motto, “By choice not by chance,”
Sustain Southern Maine has been busy ever since trying to help a swath of the
state from Brunswick to Kittery find ways to “absorb
significant shares of most kinds of growth” through the next 25 years.
That effort has led to the selection
of 10 pilot projects, including South Portland’s Mill Creek area, that will
serve as what Bangor-based planning consultant Evan Richert calls “learning
laboratories.”
“We wanted to understand the economic
structure of this region, so we inventoried some 175 economic centers, ranging
from tiny convenience centers in rural locations on up to the Maine Mall and
downtown Portland,” said Richert. “One thing we were trying to understand is
what is the growth potential of these centers? To what extent can they be
developed, redeveloped, rebranded and refurbished?”
Of the 175 centers, 10 were picked for
further study by Sustain Southern Maine. Over the next five months, it will
begin to present its findings and recommendations for each area to meet the
growth numbers predicted by economist Charlie Colgan, a Maine School of Public
Service professor who led the state’s Consensus Economic Forecasting Group from
1992 to 2011.
“We want to push the envelope in every
case, but we also want to be constrained by the market and other realities,”
said Richert. “We don’t want this to be pie-in-the-sky. We want it to be
something that will be useful to the property owners and tenants of these
districts, and to the communities.”
Colgan’s predictions, prepared for a
current Greater Portland transportation study, anticipates a 13.5 percent spike
in private, non-farm employment in southern Maine through 2035. That translates
to between 3,000 and 3,500 new jobs in South Portland, largely in health care and
social assistance (seen growing 74.4 percent) and educational services (up 61.4
percent). That job growth is expected to bring up to 2,400 new households to
South Portland, already Maine’s fourth-largest city.
“That’s relatively modest growth, but
it's substantial. The question is, what percent of that might be captured by
this area?” asked Richert, while simultaneously setting a design goal of 10
percent.
On Dec. 13, Richert and his Sustain
Southern Maine partner, Carol Morris, held an introductory meeting with city
officials and about a dozen property owners, workers and residents of the Mill
Creek area. That meeting was intended to generate feedback in advance of a
larger public workshop on Jan. 16, when Sustain Southern Maine will present its
initial recommendations for the area.
“We won’t be proposing anything that
would be imposed on anybody,” Richert. “We just want to learn, how can this
area grow? How can Mill Creek prepare for the next generation of growth? How
can you build in a mix of uses in this community so there is the opportunity to
fulfill certain needs, where people live and work.
“Out of the 10 pilot centers, we will
have lessons learned,” said Richert. “We will then extrapolate those concepts
to the southern Maine region as a whole.”
At the Jan. 16 workshop, expected to
last from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., participants will “brainstorm” development
ideas based the “livability principals” given to Sustain Southern Maine by its
HUD grant. These include providing more transportation choices, promote
affordable housing, enhance economic competitiveness, support the existing
community and coordinate policies and investment.
Following the workshop, architects and
landscapers from Portland-based SMRT Inc. will draft a “conceptual illustration
of the kind of place this might be in its next generation,” said Richert.
“Basically, we will borrow this area
for a day and give it back as we found it” said Richert. “Then, you can do with
it what you wish, but hopefully what we do will be helpful to you.”
According to City Planner Tex Haeuser,
the pilot project, along with the public workshop and the resulting
illustrations, will help to guide implementation of South Portland’s newly
adopted comprehensive plan, which calls on Mill Creek to become a “vibrant,
mixed-use commercial center.”
“This is about trying to realize a
little bit more of the potential of Mill Creek, which has a lot of very good
things going for it, and very good things happening now, but we realize more
can be done,” he said.
While no property owners at last week’s
introductory meeting balked outright at the idea of adding homes and apartments
to the Mill Creek shopping area, some raised doubts about a concurrent rise in
business growth. That’s due in equal part, they said, to the “psychological
barrier” presented by the Casco Bay Bridge and the area’s “uninviting” layout.
“All of the main thoroughfare
approaches to this neighborhood have the backs of the buildings facing them.
There’s nothing welcoming,” said Bryan Shumway, president of Wishcamper
Companies.
B Street resident Caroline Hendry, a
member of the Planning Board, said the area has an “extremely utilitarian” feel
that is “very automobile centered,” and “unattractive.” For that reason, she
said, people tend to enter the neighborhood to frequent a single site and
leave, rather than shopping several stores.
“I actually see the residential
section as coming around and shaping what’s to come here," said Eric
Urbanek, of Commercial Properties, owner of the Mill Creek Plaza.
Urbanek noted the promise of recent
enrollment trends at Southern Maine Community College, saying that should
translate into housing development to solve the problem of people "getting
bridged" on the way to class. However, he was less sanguine about luring
retailers, who "only want to be at the Maine Mall."
"When we’re marketing vacant
space over at the Mil Creek Plaza, people won’t even look at it. We can’t even
get to the negotiating aspect of it,” he said
“I don’t see us taking this area here
and dramatically changing it,” said Tony McDonald, a partner in the CBRE | The
Boulos Company. “They’re not going to knock down the shopping center and put up
an apartment building. It sort of is what it is.”
When Yankee Ford owner Joe Manning
noted high-rise buildings taller than the maximum 45-foot height will be needed
to meet the vision of 240 housing units in the neighborhood, McDonald stepped
in with a word of caution. To create an “urban feel,” Portland set a minimum four-story
height in the Bayside area he’s trying to develop, McDonald said, and it’s been
a “huge impediment" to filling space.
The question on everyone's mind was
how tall building can be given the Central Maine Power transmission lines that
run through the center of the district.
Still, Haeuser suggested views of
Casco Bay might be a selling point in “smaller apartments for young people.”
“Give them really good Wi-Fi and maybe
a few more interesting restaurants and maybe the place takes off,” he said.
That prompted Urbanek to call out Bull
Moose owner Brett Wickard for suggestions on how to appeal to the younger set,
while McDonald said Bull Moose is an anomaly of the youth-centric business
willing to locate in Mill Creek.
A building at the corner of Q and E
streets that he’s been trying to market “forever” as a spot for a hipster diner
or nightclub continues to sit empty, he said.
“I’m shocked how little interest I
get,” said McDonald. “I’m the most negotiable guy there is. I am so ready to
get kicked in the teeth, but I can’t find anyone to kick me.”
“Moving forward, I think this Gen Y
thing is the angle to consider,” said Randy Libby, on hand representing the
Maine Paint Building. “By the time anything gets done here, they’ll be older
and they’ll want high-rise buildings with little shops on the bottom and a
sense of a neighborhood."
However, City Assessor Elizabeth
Sawyer points out that condo units in new buildings not unlike what some see
coming to Mill Creek had to be "heavily discounted," while the
ground-floor shops remain empty.
Bob O’Brien, representing the
Waterfront Association, said a 2005 community review of the Knightville area
declared the Mill Creek shopping area to be “a scar” on the community.
Looking forward to the Jan. 16 workshop,
he said, “This is an opportunity to focus on an area that everybody says we
need to do something with. You’ve go a lot of land controlled by a small group
of individuals, so something can get done.”
A CLOSER LOOK
In addition to Mill Creek in South Portland, Sustain Southern Maine also is developing “pilot study” planning models for nine other areas expected to “absorb significant shares of most kinds of growth” over the next 25 years. These include:
• Upper Village, New Gloucester
• Gray Village, Gray
• Steep Falls Village, Standish
• Pride’s Corner, Westbrook
• India Street neighborhood, Portland
• Dunstan Corner, Scarborough
• West Kennebunk
• Route 109 “transportation area,” Wells
• Downtown edge, Kittery
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