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September 4, 2006

Going once, going twice | An inside look at the recent Portland Public Market liquidation auction

By Chris Churchill
This is a sad event, attendees said again and again during the recent auction that once and for all signaled the death of the Portland Public Market. But then again, there were bargains to be had ˆ— and everybody loves a bargain.

"It's like picking over bones," said Nancy Gray, owner of the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, as she clutched a newly bought framed print, purchased for $10, that had hung on a market wall. "But that's what auctions are."

By now, the troubles ˆ— and ultimate failure ˆ— of the Portland Public Market are well known. Built by the nonprofit Libra Foundation with high hopes and altruistic ambitions, the $6 million building opened in 1998. It was a high-ceiling wonder that attracted crowds and enthusiasm, won urban design awards and was profiled in magazines.

But the crowds and much of the attention dwindled. Vendors came and went, filling their
shelves with colorful goods, then emptying those same shelves a short time later. Some say the market was never properly publicized and managed by ownership. Some say it was in a poor location, away from office-worker and tourist concentrations. Some say the Portland-based foundation, which recently sold the building with six others in a $65 million purge of downtown Portland real estate, pulled the plug too quickly, abandoning a philanthropic ideal.

But by the time of the August 24 auction, arguments for why the market failed didn't matter anymore. The market's new owners, North Carolina-based Guggenheim Real Estate, had no interest in sustaining the market. And the Libra Foundation decided to rid the building of the lingering items that held value, of its lights and refrigerators and shelves and counters and ˆ— well, of everything.

And members of the crowd were impatient for deals. "I'm hoping to get that Hussman fish case," Marty Macisso, owner of Scarborough Fish and Lobster, said before the auction began, standing near a barren area that once was home to the market's fish dealer. "The thing about auctions is that you never know what you're going to [pay]. You cross your fingers."

Sold: one walk-in refrigerator
The bidding began at 10 a.m. in the market's eastern end, with hundreds of restaurant and shop owners from across the state jammed into a space that recently was Maverick's, a steakhouse. "Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to start the auction," hollered Tom Madsen, an auctioneer with Gray-based Cyr Auction Co. "Here ye, here ye and all that." Shortly after, the crowd gazed upon the auction's first item: a copper-topped bar that lined a section of the restaurant. It sold for $50.

And so it went. The auction lumbered through the nearly empty market, stopping every few feet to examine and take stock of another item. If it had value at all, it went up for bid. "Who'll give me 500 bucks for this fridge?" yelled Madsen. "It's on wheels!"

Meanwhile, the market's few remaining vendors glumly watched, though the auction provided them with a steadier stream of customers than they typically enjoyed. Some of the hold-out vendors intend to move in early September to a new, smaller market about a block away, in Monument Square. "The ideals of this market will live on," said Kris Horton, owner of K. Horton's, a dealer of specialty cheeses.

As Horton spoke, the supulchral procession continued, and Everett Cook was part of the throng. A maintenance supervisor at the The Granary, a Farmington brewpub, he had seen the auction advertised and made the two-hour trip. "Never been here before," Cook said of the market. "It's quite a building. It'd be nice if everything was still in here."

Indeed, when it was busy, the market was quite a place, a bold experiment that was full of urban energy and had a mix of people not found elsewhere. Tourists mingled with natives. The poor sat next to tie-wearing businessmen. Lunch-eating students from nearby Portland High School stood in line with the elderly. This was a place where you could buy olives from France, wine from Argentina and lettuce from southern Maine farms.

The market's beauty and quality of construction has never been disputed. The building soars, its outer walls made mostly of glass, its vaulted ceiling made of mammoth pieces of exposed timber. But the building is awkward: Its cement floor slopes with the hill on which it's built on. And it is narrow and L-shaped, with a hard right angle at its center.

If not a market, what could this building be? Rumors swirled at the auction. Some said the market would become offices or condos. Some believed the new owners would raise the roof and add a full second floor. Others thought the market would be torn down and replaced with a less idiosyncratic building. "You know what I think it should be?" asked Brad McCurtain of Portland-based Maine Securities, who also owns a nearby coffeehouse. "A mini-convention center. It'd be perfect for it."

The auction continued through the lunch hour, a time that was once the market's busiest. But few came on this day, though several market vendors continued to serve. "The perception is that the market is already closed," said Dimitrios Mihos, owner of Romeo's Pizza, a take-out counter. "Sometimes, perception is reality."

But Don and Ellen Nicolato came. And the couple from Monroe Township, N.J., didn't like what they saw. "What happened?" Ellen asked. "It's depressing."

The market, the couple said, was their reason for pulling off the highway. Fans of markets in cities like Philadelphia and Washington, they figured they'd grab a quick lunch. "It's too bad it didn't work," Ellen said. "They have to take it out of the guidebooks now."

As the day wore on, the auction lost intensity. The crowd of weary restaurant owners grew thin. Yet the bidding continued. A pack of the market's wood-topped tables went for $30 each. A tall clock that greeted market visitors sold for $500. A walk-in refrigerator, big enough for a cocktail party, went for $1,050. (In the end, the auction netted about $80,000, says Madsen.)

The victorious high bidders made plans to carry their trophies away, to empty the building of the items that helped give it character. Bit by bit, piece by piece, the market faded into history.

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