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Photo / Maureen Milliken
Andrew Wheeler, director of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks Thursday in front of the site of the future Children's Museum & Theatre at Thompson's Point in Portland. Behind Wheeler are museum Director Julie Butcher Pezzino and EPA New England Regional Director Dennis Deziel.
Thompson's Point's history as a marine and railroad industry hub, followed by decades of industrial use and neglect, created an undesirable wasteland.
But thanks to $2 million in federal Environmental Protection Agency brownfields money, which cleaned up the property, the 34-acre site has become a destination.
"This is a great success story," said EPA Director Andrew Wheeler as he stood before the future Children's Museum & Theatre, now under construction. For ever dollar invested in Thompson's Point through the EPA brownfields program, $20 in private investment has been returned.
"That's one of the best returns of any brownfields project," Wheeler said. The average return is 15-to-1, he said.
Wheeler, who was nominated by President Donald Trump as EPA director in January 2019, toured the development as part of a whirlwind tour of southern Maine sites. He started Thursday at the Maine Port Authority, where he talked about Opportunity Zone investment, and ended at the Cape Porpoise Lobster & Bait Co., in Kennebunkport, where he announced that diesel rules for lobster boats would be eased.
Since the brownfields program began in the mid-1990s, Maine has received $94 million to remediate 192 properties, spurring more than $453 million in added funding and creating nearly 4,000 jobs, Wheeler said. The cleanups are key to economic development of sites and jobs creation. Wheeler was accompanied by Dennis Deziel, the EPA's New England regional director.
Much of Thompson's Point development is the $110 million project by Parallax Partners. Thursday's tour began with a presentation by Parallax Partners Project Manager Bo Kennedy inside Halo at the Point, a one-time railroad building that's now an event center.
"We're building a community from the ground up," Kennedy told Wheeler.
Thompson's Point already has a variety of retail and office businesses in Brick North, the first redeveloped building on the site — Big Room Studios, Bissell Brothers Brewing Co., Cellar Door Winery, Color Me Mine paint-your-own-pottery studios, the International Cryptozoology Museum, Stroudwater Distillery and Locally Sauced.
Outdoor concerts and other events are held under the refurbished train shed roof, salvaged from Union Station, which had been on nearby St. John Street and was torn down in 1960. The tour also included recently renovated Brick South, an event center, and plans are in the works for a 148-room hotel, condos and office space.
Kennedy said one of the aims of the development is to save the historic brick buildings on the site. Wheeler noted that the EPA's sustainable construction best practices includes reusing old buildings whenever possible. "It's really important, that where we could, we keep the original architecture," Kennedy said.
Julia Butcher Pezzino, director of the Children's Museum & Theatre, filled Wheeler in on the $14 million, 30,000-square-foot project as a spin class enthusiastically went through its paces 100 yards away under the pavilion roof. A $500,000 brownfields grant in 2019 cleaned up the museum site. Other brownfields money was for general cleanup.
The museum bought the 1.12-acre site in 2018, Besides the EPA brownfields grant, grants from the city of Portland, the Greater Portland Council of Governments and the Davis Conservation Foundation have supported brownfield remediation of the site.
The history of the site, including the brownfields cleanup, will be part of the museum's STEM program, Pezzino told Wheeler. "We will be connecting things in the classroom to how this site was developed," she said.
Deziel, the regional EPA director, said the Thompson's Point development is an illustration of what a brownfields redevelopment should be. "As the birthplace of the American industrial revolution, New England has more than its share of industrial sites," he said.
Remediation of just one building or site "can have such resounding impacts on the community around it," Deziel said.
“EPA has a longstanding commitment to protecting public health and the environment in Maine as well as providing resources to communities that drive economic prosperity,” he said. “The brownfields grants highlighted today help show that that environmental protection and economic development can go hand-in-hand in Maine.
"There's more work to be done, but if we work together in the future as well as the past" success will continue, he said.
Also joining the group, but not part of the presentation, were Kristina Egan, executive director of the Greater Portland Council of Governments, one of the groups providing grants to fund the museum project, and Nick Mavodones, Portland city councilor at-large.
Later, in Kennebunkport, Wheeler announced extension of the deadline for lobstermen to replace high-emission diesel boat engines. He said the technology for cleaner engines that are powerful enough for lobster boats isn't readily available.
"Without today's regulatory relief, boat builders would be unable to build these types of high-speed vessels, leaving those in the market for a new boat the choice between either purchasing underpowered, unsuitable vessels or using existing vessels with older, dirtier engines," Wheeler said.
Kristan Porter, president of the Maine Lobstermen's Association, said the move addresses the concerns of the state's lobstermen and fishermen. "Delaying the implementation of the Tier 4 requirements for commercial fishing boats allows the industry to better address safety and availability issues,” Porter said.
Earlier, at the Maine Port Authority, which is in an Opportunity Zone, Wheeler said the $500,000 cleanup grant the Portland International Marine Terminal Cold Storage site got in 2019 will make it a state-of-the-art cold storage and seafood processing center.
The 21-acre site operated as a manufactured gas plant until it was decommissioned in 1965. Most recently, the site was used for natural gas/propane distribution and has been vacant since 2016.
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