UMaine System may spend $6M on outfitting temporary space for law, business schools

File photos The University of Maine System is preparing to move its law school, business school and other programs from 246 Deering Ave., Portland, at left, to a temporary site in the Old Port District.

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By Staff

The University of Maine System may decide Monday afternoon whether to spend $6 million on outfitting new, temporary digs for its law school and graduate center in Portland.

The system’s board of trustees is scheduled to vote on the proposed funding for initial renovation and furnishing of 300 Fore St., a 64,000-square-foot office building that was formerly headquarters of the Council on International Educational Exchange. The study-abroad nonprofit group laid off much of its staff last year, and earlier this month finished moving to smaller space in South Portland.

In May, the UMaine System board approved a temporary relocation to the site for the University of Maine School of Law and the University of Maine Graduate and Professional Center. Along with the Graduate School of Business and other UMS partners, they will operate out of the leased space until a new, permanent home is constructed on the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus.

Maine Law and the Graduate and Professional Center currently are housed at 246 Deering Ave., Portland, in a nearly-50-year-old building UMS has called “functionally obsolete.”

The permanent replacement is projected to cost at least $70 million, and plans for them haven’t yet been finalized. UMS will need to raise at least $30 million to match $40 million pledged by the Harold Alfond Foundation for the project.

Meanwhile, the six-story building in Portland’s Old Port District needs to be reconfigured.

“The building is currently designed and laid out in a call-center type fashion and includes minimal classroom space or enclosed/private office spaces which are needed for the effective function of the uses planned in the new space,” a document for the trustee meeting noted.

The $6 million spend, to be funded primarily by gifts, would cover the cost of setting up classrooms, seminar rooms and a moot courtroom with a capacity of over 100. The renovated building is expected to accommodate over 70 staff and 250 students when it opens early next year.