A scrap in Bayside | While the city tries to realize its vision for a new neighborhood, one business holds its ground
On Valentine's Day last year, scrap yard E. Perry Iron & Metal faced a problem it had never experienced during its more than 100 years of operating in the heart of Portland's Bayside neighborhood: Traffic.
Sure, trucks carrying scrap aluminum and other metals destined for the scrap piles at E. Perry or nearby New England Metal Recycling were a constant sight in the neighborhood, which has been an industrial area of the city for generations. But on this blustery Valentine's Day the traffic was different. Pedestrians and cars flooded the streets surrounding E. Perry's scrap yard. Cars lined the curbs, blocking the entrance to E. Perry's scale where trucks carrying scrap metal are weighed. "The streets were inundated with traffic," says Justin Lerman, E. Perry's vice president.
The source of the traffic was no mystery. Across the street from E. Perry's front door, the first Whole Foods Market in Maine was celebrating its grand opening.
Today, the streets accessing Whole Foods' parking lot are even and freshly paved. Across the street, on E. Perry's side of the neighborhood, the streets are cracked and dotted with potholes. The section of street directly in front of E. Perry's office is so uneven water collects there in a large pool whenever it rains. "They call it Lake Perry," says Brandon Lerman, Justin's brother and vice president of the business. While E. Perry represents what Bayside was, the business' new neighbor is touted by the city as part of what Bayside will become.
Economic development is a constant topic in communities in Maine. It's often written about with hope for new jobs, new businesses, a new start. But what happens when the vision for economic development isn't shared by all parties involved? What happens when a business' hometown becomes its nemesis?
Bayside — one of the first neighborhoods seen by anyone entering the city — has changed over the last several years. Office buildings and stores have been built along Marginal Way. A mixed-income residential project is underway adjacent to E. Perry, and kitty corner to Whole Foods. The city is getting ready to accept bids from developers on a nearby city-owned lot that has been considered for office or residential development. On a recent afternoon, cranes erecting a new office building on Marginal Way are visible above the fence from E. Perry's scrap yard. "The landscape has changed," Justin Lerman says, standing amidst piles of scrap aluminum in E. Perry's fenced-in yard. "But the one constant in this area has been us."
E. Perry Iron & Metal, which currently occupies two lots on about two acres, has operated in its current location since 1896, and has been owned by the Lerman family since Justin's great-grandfather, Lewis Lerman, purchased the business in 1926. At the time Bayside was an exclusively industrial area, populated by warehouses, a rail yard repair facility, a foundry and scrap yards. E. Perry was located on a railroad line that shipped cars of scrap metal to Boston. But the warehouses are gone. The rail line is gone. Alan Lerman, Justin's father, is the current owner and soon plans to pass the business along to Justin and his brother Brandon. Justin, 29, and Brandon, 28, would be the fourth generation of Lermans to run the business.
But whether that business will be in Bayside when they take the reins is still up in the air. The city certainly hopes it's not. Portland holds up the Bayside neighborhood — long an industrial backwater — as its next big economic revitalization project, and the arrival of Whole Foods is an example of what the neighborhood will become: a pedestrian-friendly, urban neighborhood, with stores, offices and mixed-income housing. The city views E. Perry and NEMR, on the other hand, as remnants of the neighborhood's past — and hindrances to further revitalization of the area. In a 2000 report from the city, then-Mayor Nicholas Mavodones said Bayside is "characterized by disinvestment and urban blight." The report went on to call the scrap yards "the single most inhibiting factor to the successful redevelopment of Bayside."
The city and E. Perry have been at odds about moving the business for many years, though the city's efforts have intensified the last four years, Justin Lerman says. "They're certainly a massive obstacle [to economic development]," says Lee Urban, director of the city's planning and development department, of E. Perry. "Who wants to build housing next to a scrap metal recycling facility?"
That's not to say the city underestimates the value of these operations, Urban says. On the contrary, the city does not want to lose these businesses. "We have said from day one to both NEMR and E. Perry: 'We want you to stay in the city of Portland. You perform a vital service,'" Urban says.
But so far, the attempts at convincing E. Perry to relocate have failed. While NEMR has agreed to work with the city to relocate out of Bayside, the Lermans seem content to sit tight and watch the neighborhood develop around E. Perry. The Lermans say they fear the loss of their business if they move from a location they say is perfect since it's right off the highway and in the "hub of Maine." "Our location is prime," Alan Lerman writes in an email.
The discussion with the city has gotten nasty at times, with terms such as eminent domain being thrown around in the press and E. Perry making accusations that the city, after adopting new and stricter ordinances for scrap yards, is thinking up new ways to drive the business out of the area. "The city of Portland has its own vision of what Bayside should look like, and they are trying to devise a plan to eliminate us from this area," Justin Lerman says.
Urban, however, denies those claims. "There's been a lot of bad information out there," he says.
The Lermans claim they're not against the redevelopment of Bayside, or even the idea of moving, but they'd like to be able to do so on their own terms and not be forced out. "We're not against the revitalization of Bayside, we just want to be treated fairly," says Brandon Lerman. "I like the fact Portland is trying to change. I think it's positive, but I don't think anybody should be mistreated in the process."
Deadlock
Since an urban renewal initiative in the 1970s, the city has been trying to relocate the Bayside scrap yards. The city has considered taking the properties by eminent domain, but abandoned that option to avoid a long court battle. For years, the city tried enticing the business with $1 million in relocation expenses, but E. Perry didn't bite. In short, both parties are at an impasse. (For more on the negotiations, see "Inside Bayside," page 33.)
Urban doesn't think the city has mishandled the situation. "It's a constant struggle how you work with anyone, a business, or neighborhood retailer, or neighborhood," he says.
He boils down the situation in a few quick sentences. "We went through the same process with NEMR as we did E. Perry; same offering price, same offer of $1 million. One accepted and one didn't."
The troubled relationship between the city and E. Perry hasn't fazed other property owners in Bayside. Peter Noyes, president of Earl W. Noyes & Sons, a moving company in Bayside, owns several properties in the neighborhood, including an old warehouse that's been converted to a self storage facility and a few empty lots where moving trucks are parked. Despite the city's aggressive moves to try to get the scrap yards to move, Noyes says he's not nervous about the city coming after him next. He has plans of his own to develop the empty lots and says the self-storage building is useful to the community.
Noyes says when the family located its moving business to Bayside in 1971, the city said the scrap yards would be gone within three years. He does think the yards are hampering development. "Certainly as the neighborhood continues to change there's no question it's holding things back slightly," Noyes says.
"We want a walkable community," says Ron Spinella, another Bayside property owner and chair of the Bayside Neighborhood Association. "You can't be ducking scrap yard trucks, and that sort of thing. That's not going to work."
Spinella says the development of Bayside will benefit the entire community, from local businesses to the people looking for housing in the city. "I hate to say it but sometimes the public good trumps what we think are our inalienable rights," Spinella says. He says he'd have more sympathy for E. Perry if it weren't the only scrap yard complaining that moving would destroy its business. But since NEMR has gone along with the city under the same terms offered to E. Perry without complaint, he questions E. Perry's motives. "They're going to be fine," Spinella says. "They're going to flourish in the business they've flourished in for 100 years, and probably get a better deal because they held off."
The city has moved on from trying to convince E. Perry to go, says Urban, and the development of Bayside will go on despite the scrap yards. "We're not waiting for them to buy [the property on Riverside Street]," Urban says. "Life goes on and we have to help facilitate the development of Bayside with or without E. Perry there."
Meanwhile, the next generation of Lermans is preparing to take over the business. But whether the business will be in Bayside when Justin and Brandon take the reins is still up in the air. Justin Lerman expects it will. "When I came on board in 2002 this is where the location was and I didn't foresee that ever changing," he says. "We're just trying to run a business."
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