A Box in a Lot
A friend recently told me that over the past few years she’s developed the habit of looking away whenever she comes upon one of those large, boxy, metallic-looking buildings that have sprung up all over town. But looking away doesn’t work anymore, she said, because now there’s another one across the street or just up the way a bit. Getting out of the city, maybe going over to Mackworth Island or taking a drive in the country, is the only way to avoid them now. Portland’s just not the place it was when she moved here years ago, she lamented.
How sad that anyone would say that. And sadder still that it’s undeniably true.
The architects designing these buildings believe in the “visual expression of structure” and the elimination of “unnecessary detail.” Because the structural elements are invariably straight and boxy, that’s what we see: rectilinear lines unadorned by any decorative aspects. And because the structural elements are dark and gray, we get dark gray buildings.
The latest volley in this bombardment of big boxes is a proposal for another CVS Pharmacy on Forest Avenue. The national chain already has five stores in Portland, including one less than half a mile up the avenue from the location its executives are now eyeing: the five buildings from 351 to 379 Forest Ave., near USM’s Portland campus. All five structures would be demolished to make way for a cookie-cutter store with plenty of parking. Among the casualties would be Forest Gardens, a favorite Portland watering hole and gathering place for eight decades.
Last month, Portland’s Historic Preservation Board met to consider whether three of the five buildings merit protection as historic structures. They’re not all that historical, really. I mean, they’re not 18th or 19th century mansions or anything like that. But they’ve been there for all of our lives, they’re built on a human scale, and they contain businesses that have been locally owned and operated for generations. They have character. A CVS store does not. It seems the pharmacy’s developer is attracted to the site because it has enough space to offer drive-thru drug pick-up, an amenity the CVS at 449 Forest Ave. lacks. So here we go again: anything to accommodate the automobile. And, please, do we not have enough pharmacies already?
Gone would be Palmer Spring Co., an automotive parts and service shop that’s been at this location for the past 85 years, and in business since the horse-and-buggy days of 1849; David Munster’s TV Sales and Service, a family business now entering its fourth generation; and the aforementioned Forest Gardens, which is popular year-round, but packed every Thanksgiving morning before the Portland-Deering football game. You just can’t bulldoze that kind of tradition away.
Or can you? A quarter-mile south of this site, where Marginal Way meets Forest, a developer is building a strip mall called Century Plaza, where the “anchor tenants” will be another link in the Chipotle burrito chain and a T-Mobile store. Century Plaza gets its name from Century Tire, which was at that location for 88 years and was the oldest locally and family-owned tire company in New England.
This CVS proposal has to be scuttled forthwith if there’s to be any local feeling left at all in this part of the city. Preservationists have already weighed in against it, including Hilary Bassett, executive director of Greater Portland Landmarks, who told the daily paper, “We are very supportive of having protections for those buildings. Each building has an individual story behind it. To have them go for parking would be a real lost opportunity.”
The Portland Press Herald reported that an attorney representing CVS sent a memo to the Historic Preservation Board last November challenging the buildings’ historic significance, in part because alterations have been done over the years. If the buildings are deemed worthy of preservation, CVS may claim “economic hardship” in an attempt to be granted an exception to the restrictions that would apply, the paper reported. That may seem like an absurd claim to be made by a corporation whose annual sales have been rising steadily for the past five years, fast approaching $150 billion annually, but their lawyers are aggressive and the threat is real.
Portland Buy Local is on this one, big time. In an op-ed published in the Press Herald last month, the group warned, “If we as a city do not carefully plan our development, we may end up with a series of strip malls and chain stores that do not add to our city’s vision of creating a good life for all and, in fact, detract from it economically, aesthetically, and culturally.” They also pointed out that the city would lose property tax revenue and jobs if the five buildings and the businesses inside them were replaced with one CVS.
Portland’s Planning Board, which advises the City Council on these matters, has been in roll-over mode when faced with the demands of developers for some time now — variances are almost routinely granted — but, who knows, maybe this time they’ll say enough is enough.
