Courtesy / Ironwood
A view looking north on Franklin Street in Portland. The site of the planned MLK memorial is the grassy area in the foreground.
March 3, 2020
Portland MLK memorial finalist to present plan to committee
Courtesy / City of Portland
A rendering by the Robert Katz MLK memorial team provided to the city of Portland shows the initial idea for a city memorial to Martin Luther King. The UMA professor, the final competitor left in the process, will present a tweaked final plan to the city's MLK memorial review committee tonight.
By Staff
A final proposal by a University of Maine at Augusta professor, the remaining finalist in Portland's competition to design a Martin Luther King memorial, will be reviewed tonight by Portland's MLK Memorial Selection Committee, after some delays.
A team headed by Robert Katz, a UMA professor and artist, is the only one still left to consider of three finalists chosen after nine initial proposals were reviewed in November. The plan was to announce a winner on Jan. 20, Martin Luther King Day, but the committee wanted more tweaks from the two remaining finalists.
Tonight's meeting was originally scheduled for Feb. 6, but was postponed because of a storm, and after that the second finalist, TJD&A Landscape Architects, of Yarmouth, withdrew, according to a city council news release. A third finalist, Ironwood Design Group, of Newmarket, N.H., was one of the three picked in November, but wasn't invited to submit a final design in the next step of the process.
Katz, an artist, teaches classes in sculpture, 3-D design and drawing, according to UMA, which has a web page on his involvement in the MLK memorial process.
West Bayside installation
The memorial will be installed on the Bayside Trail, a paved walking trail in West Bayside that runs from Franklin Arterial to Pearl Street Extension, behind buildings fronting Marginal Way. The memorial is intended to inspire visitors to reflect on King’s life and the values he espoused, prompting everyone to consider how they can contribute to realizing his vision of an equitable and fair society, according to the selection committee's web page.
The city has allocated $100,000 for the memorial, raised from the sale of city property.
Members of the MLK memorial committee are Regina Phillips, MLK Recognition Task Force member; Christina Richardson, artist and city resident; Pam Cummings, Abyssinian Meeting House Board president; Kara Wooldrik, Portland Trails; Ethan Hipple, city of Portland Parks, Recreation and Facilities Department; Lin Lisberger, artist and Public Art Committee board member; and Cyrus Hagge, a city resident.
The city council’s Sustainability & Transportation Committee established the MLK Memorial Selection Committee to oversee the process, and the committee will make a recommendation back to the S&T Committee, which will send a formal recommendation to the council.
Tonight's meeting will be live-streamed on the city's website and its Facebook page.
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