Mega-project proposals for State Pier unveiled
Hotels, offices, parks and parking envisioned
By Chris Busby
Less than four months after the city sent out a request for proposals to redevelop the publicly owned Maine State Pier, only two developers have responded. Both are proposing mega-projects that would completely transform the deteriorating marine industrial site into a complex of hotels, office space, open space and private enterprise.
Neither developer’s interest in the property comes as a surprise, though one partnership is already creating a buzz: former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell has partnered with Tom Walsh, of New Hampshire-based Ocean Properties, to create one of the two proposals.
The other proposal was submitted by The Olympia Companies, a Portland-based hotel and commercial real estate and investment company headed by Kevin Mahaney.
Olympia developed and manages the Hilton Garden Inn, which sits diagonally across the street from the pier. It’s now proposing another hotel, this one located on the north end of the pier itself.
Word that Ocean Properties was interested in situating its hotel on the pier sparked criticism from waterfront stakeholders last year. City officials responded by passing new zoning that prohibits hotel development on the pier itself. Mahaney will have to convince city officials – and a wary public – to make an exception for his plans.
The Walsh/Mitchell proposal is also sure to cause a stir. Its hotel would sit on the land side of the property, directly across from the deep berthing slip on the pier’s eastern side. But a 300-car, four-story parking garage would sit beside it, and there would be an 80-car surface parking lot (and “event space”) on the pier itself, between a new public market and a terminal serving cruise ships and ferries.
The three members of the City Council’s Community Development Committee are scheduled to begin reviewing both proposals March 20, and may recommend entering into private negotiations with one or both parties this spring. The proposals were opened and made available at City Hall for just two hours today, though Olympia’s can be downloaded from the company’s Web site, http://www.theolympiacompanies.com. (The Bollard will have additional coverage of the plans’ details in days to come.)
The city is hoping private development will cover the cost of maintaining the 85-year-old pier, which is becoming a drain on city coffers. Efforts to bring more marine industrial work to the site have shown little promise in recent years, and with construction of the Ocean Gateway cruise ship terminal just to the east, this part of the waterfront is experiencing unprecedented commercial growth.
To the $100 million-plus Riverwalk complex on land a block east of the pier, Walsh and Mitchell would add their $90 million complex. The tab for Olympia’s plans is expected to top out at $91 million, according to the company. The public pier would be leased under either arrangement.
The Walsh/Mitchell renderings show a restaurant at the tip of the pier and the “public market” building behind it. Both structures would have “public roof top gardens.” The long surface parking lot follows, running adjacent to Compass Park, between the market building and a relatively small cruise ship terminal with a sloping glass roof.
Next to the terminal would sit the largest building on the pier by far: 119,000 square feet of office space built as high as seven stories in places.
In the photo above, the building in orange is the parking garage. The hotel is at far right, and the lighter-hued section of the hotel complex jutting out toward the water’s edge is labeled “restaurant” on the plans. The hotel would have 175 guest rooms and 25 “suites.”
Beginning from the foot of the pier, Olympia’s plan envisions a new, grassy, waterfront park. Called Casco Bay Park, it would be about the size of Lincoln Park, on Congress Street. The four-story building behind it has retail/commercial space on its ground floor, and three floors of office space above.
The six-story hotel would also have retail space on its ground floor, and would offer 10,000 square-feet of “conference and meeting space” above that. There would be 175 guest rooms.
The Walsh/Mitchell plan largely confines itself to the pier’s eastern half, where the city’s Portland Ocean Terminal and marine warehouse now stand. Olympia proposes to build seven low-slung structures on both sides of the pier’s southern end. Dubbed Compass Park Village, this part of the development would provide the “financial ‘legs'” necessary to pay for structural repairs to the pier below, the plan notes.
The four buildings on the western side are expected to house a fish market, a restaurant, retail and “artisan spaces.” The dock and remaining open space at the pier’s edge will remain accessible to “the usual fishing crowd” – the amount of pedestrian area in and around Compass Park will increase by 15,000 square feet, according to the plan.
On the eastern side, Olympia says it’s “thinking Green” by recycling the blue marine warehouse into new structures it expects to fill with another restaurant and café, freight operations for Casco Bay Lines, space for Bay Ferries (operators of The Cat high-speed ferry) and tug boat operations, and a museum. The proposal states that Olympia has held “preliminary discussions” with the Portland Harbor Museum and the Maine Maritime Museum about relocating there.
When cruise ships, tankers and military vessels are in port, security along the pier’s eastern edge will be provided in part by a six-foot-high fence that can be temporarily “deployed” for the duration of the ship’s visit. Pedestrains would still have 25 feet to walk between the fence and the hotel and other buildings.
Olympia’s plan doesn’t add any new parking, but instead relies on leasing or buying spaces in the Casco Bay Island Transit District garage at the corner of Commercial Street and Franklin Arterial, and in the Ocean Gateway garage expected to be constructed a block or so northeast. Olympia has earmarked $13 million to secure the 440 parking spaces it expects its project will be required to provide.
As a company, Olympia is a significant presence in the regional real estate market, but it’s a small fraction of the size of Ocean Properties, one of the largest hotel development and operating companies on the continent. Mitchell’s partnership with Walsh gives their proposal added gravitas. Ocean Properties executive Bob Baldacci, brother of Gov. John Baldacci, is leading the company’s effort to win city approval for its plan.
Olympia convened a “focus group” of a dozen local neighborhood advocates, urban planners and community leaders to help develop its plan’s overall design. They included former Portland Mayors Nathan Smith and Anne Pringle; former Portland Planning Board members Cyrus Hagge, Barbara Vestal and Mark Malone; Nan Cumming, Executive Director of Portland Trails; and Hillary Bassett, Executive Director of Greater Portland Landmarks.
Portland Trails and Portland Landmarks are sponsoring the first of what will surely be many public forums on the pier’s redevelopment next Thurs., March 1, at the Portland Public Library.
Both development teams expect they can complete their projects in 2010.
