The four-story building at 110 Free St. in Portland has stood in the city’s downtown for more than 50 years, but the former Sears & Roebuck department store has seen more changes in the last months of its life than perhaps ever before. Now home to MaineHealth’s corporate headquarters, the 89,000-square-foot building required significant renovations to accommodate the health care organization’s vision for collecting seven scattered divisions and 230 employees under one roof.
After a plan to build an eight-story office building and parking garage in the Bayside neighborhood with United Way of Greater Portland fell through in the spring of 2009, MaineHealth needed a new home, and fast. The organization scooped up the Free Street building for $3.5 million and turned to Harriman Architects with a November 2010 move-in date, just 14 months away. “It was a considerable challenge due to the conditions in the building,” says lead architect Patrick Costin. “Our recommendation was to knock a hole down the middle of the building.” Originally designed for retail use, the structure’s ample width prevented natural light from reaching its center.
Empty for several years following the departure of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine, the building now features a light-filled interior atrium, an open floor plan with only 13 traditional offices, and a ground floor with a board room, 350-person conference center, health facility, catering kitchen and outdoor deck with views of Portland Harbor. On the structural side, Consigli Construction used essentially invisible carbon fiber strips, typically used in bridge construction, to shore up the building’s structure, Costin says.
Following its $15 million renovation, the once windowless building has come a long way from its early days in the 1940s, when it boasted the state’s very first escalators.