14 minute read
The Waterfront
BOUTIQUES & OTHER STRANGERS
BY JOHN TAYLOR
OUcan see them in Fort Allen Park at all hours of the day, staring south down the main ship channel toward the open sea beyond. Except for the pizza nuts, preoccupied with their pepperoni, they appear to be transfixed by the scene. On occasion an ocean-going vessel passes by, but most of the time the outer harbor is still and empty apart from a few small craft. During summer tourists arrive by the busload to gape at the sailboats and wave at the Scotia Prince. But once the season ends, water-gazing resumes and it continues well into the coldest months. No regular could imagine ever tiring of that view. The contrast with life in Santa Fe is striking. Despite the magnificence of the scenery, there is no park in town where the locals gather daily to survey the surrounding mountains. It seems that only saltwater has the power to mesmerise.
Rapt contemplation of the deep is by no means a local aberration. More than a hundred years ago Herman Melville noted the same tendency in NewYorkers and described it on page one of Moby Dick: "Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see? - Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep ... "
I mention these water-gazers apropos of an anonymous poster that recently appeared in the Old Port. "Don't," it enjoins us, "take the port out of Portland." (Nor should we, it would
seem to follow, take the bang out of Bangor, assuming they decide to put one in.) I find the poster sYmpathetic and will give it support ifmy alternative proposal fails of adoption. Until it does, I shall continue to propagate the view that we could make the most of Portland harbor by zoning the entire waterfront for the exclusive use of watergazers. Everything else would have to go-ships, boats, condos, marinas, restaurants, everything. Picture the spectacle that would result: "thousands upon thousands of mortal" Portlanders thronging the harbor "fixed in ocean reveries." It would seem the ultimate in mass therapy, as benign and dependable as low tech, and completely free of charge. But Iam told this is too much to hope for, that we will have to settle for something more advanced.
I might feel easier about leaving the port in Portland or refraining from taking it out ifthis slogan were less ambiguous. Do our sloganeers distinguish between a harbor and a port? The difference, after all, counts for a good deal. You cannot have much of a port without a harbor, but you can have a lovely harbor with no port at all. The question, therefore, is how much of a port do you want, and above all, what character would you have it assume?
It is one of the sad peculiarities of American culture that even though the eastern seaboard is well endowed with good natural harbors, we have never made them the organizing principle in the design of our port cities. Whereas Mediterranean towns overlook their harbors in recognition that the sea is the source of all that is most vital to them, American port cities have always faced the other way as if to deny the reality or importance of maritime doings. Manhattan, for example, is shut in on itself to such a degree that you have necessary to travel all the way down to the Battery to discover any sense at all of being in a port city, or to see for yourself that the port owes its origins to one of the great natural harbors of the world. It is routine and als'o mistaken to lament that Nature is excluded from every comer of Manhattan. What is in fact altogether lacking is the least flavor of the maritime. This same harborphobia can be seen in miniature just down the coast in Rockport. Though nowadays a retirement village, Rockport was once a busy industrial port. The more imposing houses to be seen there dating from that bustling era hold true to American form by facing away from the harbor. • Perhaps it is our collective inexperience, resulting from our past disinclination to integrate harbor and port, that accounts for the kind of redevelopment now on display in cities up and down the coast. Though blessed with an opportunity, we find ourselves without precedents just when we need them most. An appar~ntly permanent decline in merchant marine activity has made room for a radical increase in the numbers of pleasure boats, marinas, restaurants, and the like along water-
fronts that once were industrial. Predictably this new found passion for saltwater has led to the discovery of the harbor. What to do next remains, as we all know, very much in dispute, at least in those harbors where the future is still to be decided. Ifour sloganeers here in Portland are anxious, they have reason to be. Anyone who cares to up periscope for a look around will see much that can only be termed disquieting.
The Rowse complex, for example, in Baltimore harbor typifies the current style in redevelopment. Boston, which should have known better, chose instead to follow suit with the result that the renovated wharves along Atlantic Avenue together with the much touted Haymarket -Faneuil Hall district exhibit the now familiar Rowsian look. Each of these exercises in redevelopment sought to fill a void left behind by a seagoing culture that had largely disappeared. The developers had a chance to do something fresh and arresting, something appropriate to a waterfront and a maritime heritage. What they have given us instead in each instance is one vast boutique, subdivided into separate storefronts for the sake of a nominal variety, but otherwise uniform throughout. There may be nothing wrong with this boutique here, or that one over there, and for all I know the goods they sell are the best you can • buy. Questions of quality are seldom at issue. The misfortune, rather, is that the typical boutique tends to be less a cqmmercial enterprise than a troubled state of mind or cultural gesture. Consequently, when jammed together cheek by jowl in large concentrations, boutiques lose their individual identities and together generate an atmosphere that is at once precious, arty, self-conscious, and above all ersatz. It does seem a paradox. The goods on sale in boutiquetown are real, sure enough, yet the prevailing ambiance suggests intentional phoniness.
The ascendancy of the boutique in contemporary America prompts a lengthy dissertation, but let me forbear.
It is enough here to note that the boutique has been allowed to set the tone in some of our most earnest efforts to . integrate harbor and port. The results in Baltimore and Boston are open for inspection, and if the boutique takes over in Portland, no one will be able to say he had no idea what was coming.
The most urgent task, so it seems to me, is to arrive at a definition of the term
working waterfront that most reasonable people can accept. What in Portland does, or should, constitute the port? For my part I favor a working waterfront, provided somebody else does the work. Iam fully occupied up in Fort Allen Park, gazing out to sea
John Taylor lives on the Eastern Promenade. His publication credits include The Village Voice, The Nation, The American Scholar, and Columbia Journalism Review.
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
ONE CI ENTER: THE VIE
BY RICHARD BENNETT
, 'It's an architectural failure""Just the kind of speculative development we have to be wary of in Portland"-"It will never get past groundbreaking"-"They should have put a park there"-"The space is way too expensive"-"Not enough parking"-"It ruins my view of the waterfront"-"It's been a safety hazard throughout construction"-"It will never be completed"-"There's already a glut of space on the market."
I've heard seemingly scores of complaints and very few compliments about Monument Square's newest monument, but the final millions of the $20-25 million that is One City Center are presently being expended and the building is a reality. The Golden Triangle has been excavated into oblivion.
The greatest question on most people's minds is: "Can MacBride-Dunham successfully market all 200,000 square feet of the 13-story structure?" As of this writing One City Center office space is 50-percent leased, and marketers Molly Webster and John Wise say that leasing is right on the target figures set by Burton S. Fisher, of the Fisher Group, Troy, N.Y.,the building's owner.
And Webster and Wise seem genuinely calm, even happy, about the rate of leasing. "Since people have seen the building, we've had lots of calls," says Wise. "The Omni Center in Portsmouth has been open for a year and a half with only 40-percent occupancy. In New England, the people like to touch, smell, and feel it. Their whole outlook changes when they see it." And Webster adds, "Tenants had sat back and said, 'How is this going to shake out?' The tenants are in the driver's seat."
They say that prices are "very competitive" with other Class-Aoffice buildings intown. Webster, who is in charge of finding occupants for the office space on the 10top floors, claims that the negotiated prices per square foot are "at or below" what the Liberty Group is asking at the Twin Towers on Middle Street, or at portland Square. She won't give a price.range, however, saying that there is substantial variation with each lease because of individual needs and desires.
What does One City Center offer tenants particularly and the city of Portland generally? Leigh McFarlin, the building manager, gave me a tour before the opening so I could find out. In short, I discovered beneath the sawdust, fresh paint, plastic sheets, and rolled carpeting a new expression of Portland about to unfold .
If you are fortunate enough to first stumble into One City Center on the lowest floor-the Cafe Pavilion-you will be immediately· confronted with the heart of the building's interior attractiveness. Directly ahead is the atrium, fashioned from the building's hollow core, with marble-tiled columns and floor, and a "lot of plants" to soften the atmosphere. Escalators rise and descend on either side of a glass elevator which traverses the internal spine of One City Center. In front of the elevator, carved into the tiled floor, is a small reflecting pool complete with gushing fountains.
I~SO on this level is the ~lass croissant, ' a semicircle of four 700-squarefoot spots with clear glass walls. One of these spaces is claimed by Cy Adler and Scott Richardson for a tea room/lounge called Cafe Rigoletto. "
The commercial attraction to the ground floor is the panoply of palatable pleasures which should, beginning in April, be available there. Of the four primary spaces, one of two with the most window-front is already leased. Bill Seretta, proprietor of Camp Hammond in Yarmouth, is bringing mesquite cuisine to Portland with the opening of Churchill's Grill.
To the left of the atrium is a food court featuring 12 small, individualized spaces behind a continuous, semicircular light oak counter for a diverse collection of specialties. This area, like the concessionary space at the Maine Mall, will be "high energy" with neon signs and commercial density and will include Willy's Gourmet Hotdogs (another contribution from Seretta), the August Moon (Chinese cuisine), the Portland Pizza Pie Factory, Emack & Bolio's Ice Cream Store (owned by Ken McKellar), Food Court Sandwiches, and possibly a bakery, candy store, and soup and salad spot. General seating will be available for 100 to 125 within the crescent.
McFarlin says that she intends to use the atrium as a promotional area for flower, art, and fashion shows as well as live entertainment. The columns are electrified to handle the needs of electronic sound systems. Vertically, the second and third floors will remain open for the sights, sounds, and smells of the atrium; the fourth and fifth floor are enclosed by a glass wall around the building's center.
On the second level is the main entrance for the offices above. Leasing here for the over 20,000 feet of retail space is going fairly smoothly, according to John Wise. Two of the eight larger spaces available have already been claimed by Norstar Bank and Expressions, a card and gift shop owned by Richard Durand; three more are being negotiated. Parrots Shoes, a Philadelphia-based retailer that sells fashion shoes and clothing in New York and Boston, is setting up shop here, as is Anthony Discatio, son of Joe Discatio of Joe's Smoke Shop on Congress Street, who will be leasing a small space here for City Center News.
Traffic to the offices above will be monitored on the second floor from a pulse center managed by Suburban Security of Windham, who will provide state-of-the-art security and energy management services. The retail space here can be custom-made with the movable walls for optimum design choices. Also on this level is a loading platform and freight elevator at a back door on Federal Street.
Wise calls the third level a "tough floor" to market. Around the perimeter are 11 smaller retail spaces, ranging in from approximately 1,000 to 1,800 square feet. He has space targeted for destination shopping, stores which depend on purposeful customerssuch as flower vendors, beauty shops, and laundries-rather than on whimsical window shoppers. The only signed tenant presently in any of these spots is the Perfect Touch, a hair salon. Also on this level, surrounding the half-wall
1
lilt is clear that Unionmutual spared little expense in making the space home. Colin Hampton's private office is marked by a personal conference room and the most spectacular cityscape of Portland that I have ever witnessed. "
overlooking the atrium is the "glass croissant," a semi-circle of four 700square-foot spots with clear glass walls. One of these spaces is claimed by Cy Alder and Scott Richardson for a tea room/lounge called Cafe Rigoletto.
The most significant single space on the third floor, however, is the 5,000 square feet reserved for a "white table cloth," elegant restaurant with a capacity of 300. The tenant would also have the option of seating outdoors on the terrace overlooking Monument Square. Although no tenant has yet signed, Wise has at least one very interested Portland restaurateur in consideration.
At the time of my visit to One City Center, no major office tenant had yet moved in, although the customdesigned, custom-built interiors for the Union mutual and Norstar Bank floors were unfolding beautifully. Unionmutual's top executive corps of 150 began inhabiting the top three floors of the building in early April, and it is cleqr that the company "spared little expense," as McFarlin says, in making the space home. Colin Hampton's private office is marked by a personal conference room and the most spectacular cityscape of Portland that I have ever witnessed.
Beginning in mid-March Norstar Bank's executive offices were occupied and operational. Also custombuilt and custom-designed, Norstar's space boasts flat marble entryways, English carpeting, and tremendously pleasing wallcovering. The company's boardroom with three brass chandeliers and exquisite woodwork looks out over the Portland waterfront. • Occupancy dates on the other leased office space are not generally known, although Great Northern Paper Company's executive space should become occupied early this summer. Smaller tenants will be moving in on individual schedules.
The obvious corpparison of the building-with its resplendent activity, recreational shopping potential, and its stylish blend of office and retail-is with Copley Plaza in Boston. Anticipating my thought, McFarlin says, "It has a clean line, quiet elegance, very subtle. I don't think it's overpowering. What I love about this building is that it's intimate. Everything is right in front of you, not like Copley Plaza This surprises people."
When looking at this building and all of the capable workmanship which has gone into it, I find it difficult to imagine that it will not successful. But the secret to the building will be in the image it projects into the city, an image of both familiarity and novelty. Despite the complainers and the pessimistic prognosticators and its doubtful beginnings, the building is creating its own character, a character which will soon be unveiled to a curious public. For my part, I hope that it does succeed, that it does truly become a City Center.
Welcome to Portland, One CityCenter.
