Photo / Courtesy The Boulos Co.
Fast-growing Acorn Engineering bought a condo unit in a modern downtown office building.
Updated: January 13, 2025
Fast-growing Acorn Engineering buys larger space in newer Portland office building
Photo / Courtesy Acorn Engineering
William Savage, right, Acorn Engineering’s owner and president, discusses plans at the company’s larger headquarters.
A fast-growing Portland engineering firm, whose projects range from a Buddhist temple to affordable housing and stormwater infrastructure, found a much-needed larger space for its headquarters.
Acorn Engineering bought Unit 302 at 16 Middle St., on Portland’s East End, from Tilson Middle Street Holdings LLC for $1.25 million.
Sam LeGeyt and Jim Harnden from the Dunham Group and Claire Richardson from the Boulos Co. brokered the sale.
The 5,374-square-foot Class A office condo is in a multi-tenanted building that includes Tilson Technology Management, Cloudport Coworking, Marcus Clegg, Garrand Moehlenkamp, Benkay and Grippy Tannins.
Construction of the five-story building was completed in 2017.
The building’s anchor tenant is information technology company Tilson Technology, which listed the 5,374-square-foot office condo with the Boulos Co. as a sale or lease in 2023.
Fast-growing
LeGeyt said his firm started working with Acorn Engineering in 2021 and, at that time, found a suitable space to lease in Suite 202 at 500 Washington Ave.
By early 2024, the engineering firm was running out of space, prompting another search for larger digs.
“Initially the intent was to find something else to lease,” said LeGeyt. “We looked at a number of spaces in Portland, as remaining a Portland based company was very important to them.”
The unit at 16 Middle St. was about 2,200 square feet larger, provided an opportunity to buy and also included a hotel-style residential space with a shower.
Photo / Courtesy Acorn Engineering
The Acorn Engineering team had a plant swap at its new Portland headquarters. William Savage, the owner and president, is at right in the lower row.
“A priority was to find an office that included a shower so we could go for runs” and utilize opportunities like the Portland Trails network and the Eastern Promenade, said William Savage, Acorn’s president. “That was key, in addition to the size and location.”
Second generation
Acorn was founded in 1988 by Hugh Savage, who began his career as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Campbell, Ky., and in Vietnam in 1964 to 1966. Upon his discharge, his career spanned a number of locations and roles across the U.S.
When he started Acorn in 1988, Hugh ran it for the first 18 years out of the family’s home basement in Brunswick. At the same time, his wife Caroline ran a home-based day care. After school, the couple’s five children spent time in the basement with Hugh, who put them to work on engineering tasks such as mapping stormwater sub-catchments and entering data into a stormwater modeling platform.
In 2007, Hugh turned over Acorn’s ownership to his son, William Savage.
The timing wasn’t great.
Photo / Courtesy Acorn Engineering
Attractions of Unit 302 at 16 Middle St. included proximity to trails and space to set up the ping-pong table.
“Little did I know that we were about to enter into a Great Recession,” said William.
To pay the bills, Savage started a side hustle, Casco Bay Plowing, in downtown Portland, which quickly took off. Plowing turned into landscaping and with time the civil engineering work grew.
Developing clientele
“A lot of the clients we developed during that time turned into the future clientele that we have today,” Savage said.
From 2012 on, the engineering company continued to grow slowly but organically and had a number of office locations. In 2013, Savage brought on Acorn’s first employee. In 2015, he started Acorn’s environmental division.
Today, the company, which has a second office in Kingfield, manages multiple stakeholders that include municipal, state, and federal regulatory authorities, quasi-municipal, railroads, private landowners and contractors. The work ranges from small residential projects to large multimodal transportation projects, including the recent expansion of the International Marine Terminal in Portland.
Within the last three years, Acorn’s civil design and construction administration work includes total construction cost of over $250 million.
“What’s been really remarkable and fun is to see how a lot of developers have grown, and we’ve grown right alongside them,” said Savage. “That’s been super rewarding.”
Adding staff
Acorn went into 500 Washington Ave. with 14 employees in early 2022. Now the company is up to 27 full-time employees.
“As we continue to grow, it’s important to continue to add staff to allow our existing staff to have the ability to grow into new roles and take on new leadership opportunities,” said Savage.
Recent projects — permitted, under construction or recently completed — include a new cultural hub in Westbrook for Maine’s Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, set to be built with the Khmer Maine and Watt Samaki Buddhist Temple and Community Center.
Portland Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Care’s new headquarters is under construction. Affordable housing projects include Phase 2 of the Martel School Apartments project on Lisbon Street in Lewiston in partnership with the Lewiston-Auburn Area Housing Development Corp.
Acorn is working with the Portland Housing Development Corp. on the redevelopment of a city block encompassing Cumberland Avenue, Oxford Street, Mayo Street and Boyd Street to provide affordable housing. Reveler’s redevelopment of 89 Elm St. in Portland’s West Bayside into 201 affordable apartments is under construction; Reveler’s Armature redevelopment was completed in 2023.
Acorn worked with Redfern Properties, the NewHeight Group, Community Housing of Maine and Portland Housing Authority to redevelop the old Mercy Hospital campus off State Street in Portland as a mixed-use and mixed-income project.
Construction of the Long Creek South Branch Stormwater retrofits project was recently completed. Acorn provided resident inspector services for the construction of a heavy haul road between Merrill’s Marine Terminal and the Portland International Marine Terminal; and for the reconstruction of 2.88 miles of Route 202 in the towns of Lyman, Hollis, Buxton and Gorham.
“We really pride ourselves on being the small civil engineering firm in Portland,” Savage said. “There have been opportunities to go outside of Portland, but we really love being in Portland while providing our services to the entire state.”
Engineering community
The company moved into 16 Middle St. in mid-December.
“We love it,” he said. “This new space has wonderful light. There’s enough space where we were able to set up our ping-pong table. We look down Middle Street into to the Old Port.”
He credited LeGeyt for the find.
“Sam’s been a wonderful partner,” Savage said. “He helped us find the 500 Washington Ave. location and he was tremendous with this new move.”
The neighborhood has a nice feel, he added.
With engineering firms Woodard & Curran and Haley Ward Inc. at 12 Mountfort St. a block away, Savage noted, “this area is feeling like it’s turning into a little engineering community.”
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