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Updated: April 9, 2025

In Portland’s Arts District, Equality Commons will add 54 apartments by summer 2026

apartment building Rendering / Courtesy Developers Collaborative Equality Commons has broken ground at 25 Casco St. in Portland and is expected to welcome tenants in the summer of 2026.
By Tina Fischer

Downtown Portland will be gaining another affordable apartment complex, right in the heart of the city at 25 Casco St., which runs from Cumberland Avenue up to Congress Street, near the Maine College of Art and Design.

Portland-based Developers Collaborative is replacing a former parking lot, home to only a long-vacant ATM drive-through building, with a five-story apartment building which will provide 54 new units of affordable housing for seniors.

Equality Commons will feature apartments ranging in size from 501-square-foot efficiency units to 837-square-foot two-bedroom dwellings. Nineteen of the apartments will be accessible to residents with mobility issues.

At least 60% of the units will be reserved for households earning 50% or less of the area mean income. The remainder will be available to households earning 60% AMI or less. MaineHousing will be providing 11 vouchers for residents who have special needs.

The building will include a community room, laundry facilities, bike storage, and broadband designed to support telemonitoring and/or telehealth services. Electrical infrastructure will be available to support future connections to electric vehicle chargers in the parking area, as well as potential rooftop solar.

Developers Collaborative has built multiple affordable housing projects in cities around the state, including Portland, Auburn, Lewiston, Belfast, Bridgton, Augusta and Westbrook. The company, owned by Laura Reading and Kevin Bunker, is currently finishing Peasley Park in Rockland. DC also refurbishes historic properties, develops market rate housing, and led the development of the 179-bed emergency shelter for asylum seekers on Riverside Street in Portland. 

Portland-based Penobscot General Contractors is Equality Commons’ builder. The complex is slated to open to residents in the summer of 2026.
 

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