🔒Portland Foreside developer sets out to reshape eastern waterfront

Casey Prentice, the Portland-based developer who’s turned Twelve and Douro into dining destinations on the city’s East End, plans to add a food-focused marketplace. The future Maine Market — known as the Brass Alley in the city’s mapping software — would be part of the next phase of Portland Foreside, a $1 billion mixed-use waterfront development. The project, in the works for more than decade, aims to breathe new life into a 10-acre moribund industrial site where the Portland Co. manufactured railroad equipment until 1978. For the planned market, Prentice envisions a culinary quarter where visitors could dine al fresco and purchase fresh and prepared food from several vendors. Drawing inspiration from Pike Place in Seattle and London’s Borough Market, Prentice does not aim to duplicate either but rather create something unique to Portland. “We’re not building a food hall, we’re building a true public market,” he says. By summer, the plan is expected to go before Portland’s Historic Preservation Board. Also in the works is a gas-fired cogeneration plant designed to power the evolving neighborhood, which will also include a 132-unit condominium building and a luxury hotel. While still deciding whether to connect to Central Maine Power Co.’s grid, Prentice says the plant would provide resilience from power outages, reliability as the public grid is upgraded and environmental benefits over standard boilers in terms of lower carbon footprint. If he gets the green light for that, Prentice aims to enclose the power plant in glass visible to the public. Prentice saw an early version of that in his student days at Middlebury College, during the buildout of the Vermont school’s biomass plant. “Most projects hide infrastructure, we’re doing the opposite,” he says. “By putting the cogeneration plant behind glass, it becomes a visual demonstration of our sustainability strategy.” Beyond that, Prentice dreams of reshaping Portland’s waterfront with a signature multipurpose performing arts venue that makes a statement like the Sydney Opera House in Australia. “It’s still an aspiration at this stage, but it’s exactly the kind of moment where we can work with the city and think beyond the expected,” he says.