Avesta’s new maintenance facility centralized and efficient
Courtesy / The Boulos Co.
Renovations are underway at 2257 West Broadway in South Portland, where Avesta Housing Development Corp. will establish a centralized maintenance facility.
It took a while for Avesta Housing Development Corp. to find the right property to establish a centralized maintenance facility.
But a 12,000-square-foot industrial building at 2257 West Broadway in South Portland is expected to fill the bill, once some renovations are completed.
Avesta Housing, a nonprofit provider of affordable housing in southern Maine and New Hampshire that manages about 100 affordable housing properties, bought the property from Passage Properties LLC for $1.45 million.
Drew Sigfridson, Dan Greenstein and John Finegan of the Boulos Co. brokered the deal, which closed Aug. 10.
The building, which dates to 1981, is on 1.52 acres.
Up to now, Dana Totman, president and CEO of Avesta, said the housing nonprofit hasn’t had a central location for its 40 maintenance technicians to stow equipment and materials. It also gives Avesta's landscaping operation, Maine Landscape Management, a central spot to stow trucks, snowplows and other machinery, as well as mulch, sand and crushed rock.
Avesta acquired the landscaping company a couple of winters ago when one of its snowplowing subcontractors couldn’t find enough drivers during a snowstorm.
“We got through that storm and the rest of the winter by asking each of our subcontractors to take on a few more properties,” Totman said. But that was hard for them because they also didn’t have enough drivers.
“It exposed our vulnerability,” he continued. “We said, ‘Let’s try to see if there’s a landscaping company out there that might want to come under our umbrella.’”
Highway access and room for storage
The best part about the maintenance facility is its South Portland location, Totman said. Avesta owns 98 properties, 2,700 apartments and two assisted-living facilities, and the portfolio continues to grow. The housing is in greater Portland, Saco-Biddeford and as far north as Lewiston and as far south as New Hampshire.
Not surprisingly, one of the requirements of the new building was highway access.
Another was being big enough to keep appliances in stock such as refrigerators, ovens and toilets.
“If on a Saturday afternoon we get a call from a resident whose refrigerator broke, we’ll have a few ready at this site,” he said.
Renovations will include space reconfigurations that will accommodate Avesta in 7,000 square feet and two existing tenants in the remaining 5,000 square feet.
“If we want to grow and one tenant wants to move out, we’ll have that opportunity,” he added.
Avesta will invest $100,000 to $200,000 in renovations. Avesta obtained a traditional commercial loan from Bangor Savings Bank for the acquisition and rehab.
“This will enable us to have a much better inventory system,” Totman said. “Some of our housing facilities have essentially no storage capacity. Others might have a small storage shed or a garage. This allows us to become much more efficient.”
Avesta has a number of affordable housing developments recently completed or in the pipeline.
Wessex Woods Senior Apartments, on Brighton Avenue (at Wessex Street) in Portland’s Nason’s Corner neighborhood, will have 40 units, including 34 affordable apartments and six at market rate.
The project is about half done, said Totman.
Deering Place, at 510 Cumberland Ave. in Portland, is a 75-unit mixed-income development.
West End Apartments II is a project at 586 Westbrook St. in South Portland. Of its 64 units, 40 will be affordable family units.
The project is about a third of the way toward completion, said Totman.
Projects completed in 2019 include a 12-unit restoration of Mildred Fox School in South Paris, and a development called Southgate in Scarborough.
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