Portland broker 'confident' of filling Renys space soon

Photo / Tim Greenway The Renys store on Congress St. in Portland was listed in July for sale or lease.

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Three months after listing Renys' downtown Portland store for sale or lease, broker Cameron Foster of the Boulos Co. said he's optimistic about finding a tenant for the downtown retail space.

The ground-floor storefront, located at 540 Congress St. near the Maine College of Art and Design, has a footprint of 24,800 square feet.

"We've had a lot of showings" for a range of businesses including retail, office, medical and even indoor recreation, he told Mainebiz this week.

Citing financial headwinds since the pandemic, Renys this summer announced plans to close the store by year's end.

While the family-owned discounter did not elaborate on the reasons for leaving downtown Portland, the move comes amid widespread concerns about downtown safety and cleanliness along the Congress Street corridor.

The building, which dates to 1942, was formerly occupied by F.W. Woolworth and then L.L.Bean before Renys opened there in 2011.

Boulos is marketing the space in two separate listings. The listed lease rate of $9.50 per square foot and a sales price of $4.295 million are unchanged from the original listing in July.

Besides the retail area, the 30,877-square-foot building includes 1,800 square feet of warehouse space and 1,200 square feet of offices. There are also four leased residential condominiums on the upper floor.

This summer just after the listing went live, some insiders speculated on a dollar store as a likely next occupant. That's the generic term for hard-discount chains led by Dollar General Corp. (NYSE: DG), Dollar Tree Inc. (Nasdaq: DLTR) and Dollar Tree-owned Family Dollar, all of which have a presence in Maine.

At the time, Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the Retail Association of Maine, said that while the property occupied by Renys has always housed a retail business, "that doesn't mean it can't function as something else down the road."

However, "it's going to take some creative thinking to come in and utilize that space in a way they think will work," he noted.

As the clock ticks closer to Renys' self-imposed end-of-year moving deadline, Foster said he is "very confident we'll have a tenant for the space here soon."