🔒Editor’s note: Digging into what’s needed

Portland has been at the heart of a debate over the fate of its downtown.

Store vacancies, declining office occupancy and an increase in vagrancy and crime have put the once-prosperous neighborhood in the crosshairs.

The Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce has urged the city to address the issue and, as Deputy Editor Renee Cordes reports in our cover story, the number of vacancies is growing, with Renys moving out by year’s end, at the same time the city, nonprofits and the business community are grappling with a humane response to homelessness and people facing addiction.

Elsewhere in the issue, Senior Writer Laurie Schreiber talks to some builders who are using modular construction to reduce the cost of housing and speed the construction timeline.  

An increasing number of builders are adapting mass-timber into construction projects. Mass-timber buildings are aesthetically pleasing and often cheaper and faster to build. The issue for the Pine Tree State — with its abundance of forest products — is that mass-timber products are not something that can be locally sourced. While some production capability is being developed in the U.S., many mass-timber products come from Austria and other countries. See Tina Fischer's story. 

A modest proposal for downtown Portland

The debate over how to revive the Congress Street corridor in Portland will not be settled overnight. But I have a modest proposal.

Let’s acknowledge, first, that the pandemic work-from-home trends mean there are fewer office workers around Monument Square and along Congress Street. That’s combined with the shift over the past decade of more office space being developed on Portland’s East End — in effect, shifting the office market.

Then you take the fact that there are two major arts-related developments in the works: Portland Museum of Art plans a $100 million expansion, while a proposal is in the early stages to develop a performing arts center near City Hall. These two projects would create bookends of a sort for the Arts District. At the heart of the district is the Maine College of Art & Design, with surrounding attractions like the State Theatre, Merrill Auditorium, One Longfellow Square and Portland Stage Co.

What about going all in on the Arts District theme? Space is already renting at a discount, so a start would be turning empty storefronts into galleries. Upper floors could be marketed to artists who are struggling to pay high rents in New York, L.A. and other cities. The Renys space would be ideal for an art-supply store such as Blick Art Materials, Utrecht or Jerry’s Artarama (or as expanded space for the existing Art Mart).

With the office market shifting and the apparent reluctance to develop market-rate housing downtown, inviting more artists into the neighborhood could be a win-win.