A Look Back: A different time on Washington Avenue
We take for granted the recent changes on Washington Avenue in Portland. A distillery, an award-winning restaurant, a specialty cheese shop. But the recent deal by Goodwill of Northern New England to sell its share of the old Nissen Bakery on Washington Avenue gives us a benchmark. A cover story in the Mainebiz issue of March 19, 2001, talks about the daunting task of repurposing the 150,000-square-foot building for offices, retail and other uses. The story reports that, after Nissen closed the bakery site, the building sold for $300,000 in 1997. Twenty-two years later, in May, Goodwill Northern New England sold 30,000 square feet, owned as a condominium in the Nissen building, for $4.6 million.
Fun Fact: A list of the “top 10 fastest-growing jobs in Maine,” published in the Mainebiz Fact Book of 2001, was led by computer support specialists, a field that was expected to grow 85% by 2008. At the time, the job paid $14.70 an hour. Runner up: desktop publishing specialist, a field expected to grow by 73% over seven years; it paid $12.63 an hour.
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