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Photo / Maureen Milliken
Kristin and Dean Bingham, in front of Dean's Sweets, 54 Cove St., Portland. They've expanded to the East Bayside neighborhood in order to increase production.
PORTLAND — When Dean and Kristin Bingham decided to look for more space so they could expand production for Dean’s Sweets, at 475 Fore St., they didn't zero in on East Bayside.
“It kind of happened by accident,” Dean Bingham said Tuesday as they took a break in their new production and retail space at 54 Cove St.
Bingham had asked John Robinson, of RE/MAX Shoreline, about property he thought might work. "He said, 'You don't want that, it's a restaurant, but I've got this great space on Cove Street,'" Bingham said.
It turned out the 17,000-square-foot building at 50-54 Cove St. is owned by Peter Bass, a friend of Bingham’s.
The chocolatier moved into a 4,000-square-foot section of the building, opening earlier this month. They held a grand opening last weekend. Dean's Sweets still has retail space at 475 Fore St., but the expansion allows production for its growing online and walk-in business, as well as the ability to introduce more products.
Currently they're using a fraction of the space, with The Design Center by Fiore Home, an interior design business also sharing space, and a kitchen and cabinet designer about to move in. Overall, they have 4,000 square feet to use, said building owner Bass.
Bingham said they expect to use about 2,000 square feet eventually.
Aside from the building fitting their needs, the neighborhood turned out to be a big plus.
"We got really lucky," Kristin Bingham said. 'It's the right space, and the neighborhood has a really great vibe."
East Bayside was "a very rough neighborhood when I was growing up," said Justin Lamontagne, of NAI The Dunham Group and a Portland native. Now it's become one of the peninsula's fastest-growing commercial areas. "It wasn't originally designed to be what it is," he said. "It evolved organically into a vibrant area."
Lamontagne, the Binghams, Bass and others give Coffee By Design credit for being one of the first businesses of its kind to take a chance on the area. The coffee roaster and cafe, which opened on Congress Street in 1994, opened a cafe at 1 Diamond St., buying a warehouse owned by Goodwill, in 2014.
"They expected their customers to follow them, and they did," Lamontagne said.
He describes Coffee By Design, the craft brewers that have followed and businesses likes Dean's Sweets as "pseudo-retail-industrial" — businesses that manufacturer goods and sell them on site. Bass calls them "industrial chic" — businesses that make "things that weren't being made here before," like breweries, coffee roasters and more.
The buildings are large, open, close to the street and utilitarian. The businesses "need production space, and they need showroom space," Lamontagne said.
Rising Tide Brewery, which relocated from Industrial Way to 103 Fox St. in 2012, was already in the neighborhood, and in 2017 expanded to 6,700 square feet, moving into adjacent space left empty when Maine Craft Distilling moved to Washington Avenue.
Last year, Austin Street Brewery moved in next door, at 115 Fox St.
A few blocks away, Lone Pine Brewing opened at 217 Anderson St. in 2016. While it moved production to Gorham last year, it maintains a tasting room in the bright pink former warehouse, right down the street from bright green Urban Farm Fermentory, which is a relative grandfather in the neighborhood, opening in a former factory in 2010.
Adjacent to Lone Pine is Blue Lobster Urban Winery and Goodfire Brewing Co., both at 219 Anderson St.
On the coffee front, Tandem Coffee Roasters, which had a cafe in the neighborhood, expanded roasting operations to the former Bunker Brewing Co. building at 122 Anderson St. when the brewer moved to bigger space in Libbytown in 2016.
The city has also focused on the area, adding brick sidewalks, lighting and other features to some streets that make it more pedestrian-friendly.
Lamontagne was a broker on the deal that brought Brewery Extrava into the former Maine Boiler building at 66 Cove St., two buildings down from Dean's Sweets. It opened around the same time the new Dean’s Sweets location did, and also held a grand opening last weekend.
Brewery Extrava is owned by Joe and Charlene Doherty and brewing Michael LaCharite, who is the brewmaster. The 1,000-square-foot tasting room includes an outdoor seating area and there are up to 12 beers on tap. Joe Doherty in February said the owners hope to create “a space that has a cozy and rustic feel.”
The 5,000-square-foot building, once gray and definitely industrial-looking, now features a whole-building mural of wheat field and blue sky.
Lamontagne said former warehouses and manufacturing buildings like those in East Bayside can be transformed with new architectural features and some paint. "They're being reused, repurposed, and they're beautiful," he said. "You can see the investment, by the owners and tenants."
Besides 50-54 Cove St., Bass owns a new building next door, at 60 Cove St., which is home to Indigo Arts Alliance.
When he started investing in the area, "I saw it as the next Old Port — it felt the same with a lot of young energy," Bass said.
"I was sort of betting on the area expanding," Bass said. "It was mostly underused space. Industrial warehouses, electrical supply companies — the buildings were kind of antiquated for their use.
"It doesn't take much to spice them up," he said. And reusing them makes sense. "The greenest building is the building you reuse, not tear down."
He also looks to infill unused space, which led to construction of the two-story building at 60 Cove St. that opened in May and which still has second-floor space available for lease.
He said when he bought the building next door at 50-54 Cove St. four years ago, it already had tenants who fit with his vision of the building.
Besides the space occupied by Dean's Sweets and the Design Center, the building also houses Back Cove Personal Fitness, a fiber supplier, and warehouse space for Mougalian Rugs, which has a retail store nearby at 175 Anderson St., which Bass also owns. It also has about 15 artist studios.
There's still an industrial vibe to the area, combined with narrow streets. It's as common to see a tractor-trailer jockeying for space as a Subaru with a bike rack.
Both Lamontagne and Bass said zoning as it is now doesn't allow for some uses in much of the neighborhood, including many types of office and residential. But Bass also said industrial doesn't have to be straight-out manufacturing — it can be graphic design, research and development and other similar businesses. They all enhance the neighborhood's "destination" personality.
Both Indigo Arts Alliance and Cove Street Arts across the street at 67 Cove St., which opened gallery and artist space earlier this year, are not traditional manufacturing.
"It's good for any kind of makers," Bass said.
Dean Bingham said that when the 1,150 square feet they have at Fore Street became too cramped for production, he "casually" looked in some of Portland's suburbs. But he knew all along he wanted to stay in Portland. And he wanted light industrial space.
"We're definitely a manufacturer," he said.
The Binghams' expansion to the building means they can also expand production, including to new items like chocolate-covered espresso beans and caramel-chocolate popcorn.
While they do have some corporate clients, including turn-down chocolate service for the Press Hotel, they rely on online orders and walk-in customers. Their Fore Street store is on the Portland Foodie Tour, and they expect that visitors and residents checking out the nearby tasting rooms will also seek them out.
Besides themselves, they employ seven part-time workers and had ramped up the staff in anticipation of their move. There's room in their space to expand, and they probably will in the future, they said.
They use local ingredients whenever possible, including cream from Smiling Hill Farm in Westbrook and butter from Casco Bay Creamery in Scarborough. They also partner with other businesses in creating their chocolates — there is Allagash Black in the chocolate stout truffles and potato chips from Fox Family Potato Chips, of Mapleton, in their chocolate potato chip bar.
Their products are nut-free, and many are gluten-free. Some are vegan.
"We've developed a little bit of a niche," said Dean Bingham. But the overall intention was simply to make appealing chocolates.
They've benefited from good neighbors that helped spur their customer base since they started. Their first location, on Middle Street, was next to Eventide Oyster Co. Their Fore Street store is neighbor to the Portland Harbor Hotel, Hyatt Place and other hotels, restaurants and businesses.
They expect East Bayside neighbors to also add to their clientele. Kristin Bingham said they're excited about their neighbors. She reels off the names of businesses in the area that have brought new life to the area.
They're also across the street from Cycle Mania, which Dean Bingham appreciates since he bikes to work from their home in the Forest Avenue area.
Back when they were looking to expand, "We kind of wanted to be in this area," Kristin said. They felt like they're doing the same type of business as others who have located there, and they like the energy and the fact it's an emerging arts area.
"And it's just beginning," she added.
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