Photo / William Hall
The University of Maine System's Maine Center recently expanded into leased space on the second floor of 7 Custom House St. in Portland, and may ultimately occupy the entire building.
Updated: August 28, 2024
UMS grad school center in Portland's Old Port plans to expand next door, doubling space
Photo / William Hall
The Maine Graduate & Professional Center moved into new quarters at 300 Fore St., shown at the left, and has already begun expanding into 7 Custom House St., the adjoining building at the right.
Photo / Courtesy, UMS
The Maine Center's potential new space at 7 Custom House St. in Portland faces Commercial Street, on the city's working waterfront.
Photo / Courtesy, UMS
The Maine Center already is using space on the second floor of 7 Custom House St., including this boardroom.
Photo / Courtesy, UMS
The UMS Maine Center's expansion at 7 Custom House St. in Portland includes this training room.
By William Hall
The still-new home to the University of Maine School of Law in Portland may soon expand to a newer home next door, and the process is already underway.
The Maine Graduate & Professional Center — which houses the law school, the Maine Graduate School of Business and the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service — has leased nearly four floors of a five-story office building at 7 Custom House St., a spokeswoman told Mainebiz.
The building adjoins 300 Fore St., which the University of Maine System renovated at a cost of nearly $14 million and where the three UMS schools and other programs opened in January 2023 as the Maine Center.
So far, the center is using a single floor in the neighboring building, after investing about $300,000 there in new paint, carpet, furnishings and equipment.
But on Wednesday, a UMS trustee committee unanimously approved spending $650,000 to draft plans and make other preparations for building out the rest of the new space. UMS already has about $8.5 million available for the actual expansion.
If the expansion goes as proposed, the Maine Center's footprint in Portland's Old Port area would more than double next year, from 63,000 square feet on Fore Street to a total of 130,000 square feet. Auburn-based Harriman would be the architect on the project.
In 2026, UMS would have the option to purchase the buildings for a total of $37 million, according to a presentation at Wednesday's meeting of the trustees' Finance, Facilities and Technology Committee. That funding would come from a previous $55 million commitment by the Harold Alfond Foundation.
The 7 Custom House St. building is owned by Olympia Equity Investors IV LLC, and 300 Fore St. is owned by CIEE, an international education nonprofit that moved from there to South Portland after a massive pandemic layoff.
Among other tenants, Covetrus Inc. recently occupied much of the Custom House Street property. In 2022, the animal health company moved its global headquarters to newly constructed offices on Mountfort Street in Portland.
'One building'
The goal of the Maine Center expansion is to create a "world-class interdisciplinary graduate center and innovation hub," according to the presentation by Seth Goodall, executive director of the Maine Center and CEO of Maine Center Ventures.
The expanded center would support four functions, according to the presentation:
- Core interdisciplinary graduate degrees and programs, comprising the three schools and offerings from the University of Maine College of Engineering and Computing;
- Professional development and executive education, responding to needs from Maine industries, the workforce and business leaders;
- Entrepreneurship and innovation, providing resources to advance research, development, product commercialization and ultimately economic development; and
- Convening and knowledge-sharing, through hosting events, scholars, leaders and others to address Maine's challenges.
Under the Maine Center's plan, graduate education would remain mostly at Fore Street, while work related to business innovation would primarily take place at Custom House Street.
But neither building would be a silo.
Currently, 300 Fore St. and 7 Custom House St. are connected by a joint stairwell, and the Maine Center hopes to open up more access between the structures.
"We are striving to create one building, one hub," Goodall told the trustees.
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