The Former Headquarters of the Former Northern Burner Supply Company and its Parking Lot at 165 Washington Avenue.  Plans are to Develop it into 326 Units with Only 11 Parking Spaces for that Many Units.

Happy New Year!

Residents of 165 Washington Avenue Could be Foreign Students at the Roux Institute, in East Deering, Dreams Culley. This Blogger always Preferred Bush’s Beans Over BMBaked Beans Anyway.!

The public is invited to attend a second city required public meeting on the plans of Redfern Properties LLC, (Jonathan Culley, managing partner) to develop 165 Washington Avenue into a 326 unit apartment building.  The  meeting is set for Wednesday, January 8, 2024 at the East End Community School cafeteria at 5:30 pm.

The Culley plan proposes to build a 7 story building  on a vacant lot with a vacant building on it.  The plan still calls for only 11 parking spaces for the 326 unit building, according to Kevin Kraft, director of the city’s planning office.  Unfortunately, this second notice carefully eliminated from inclusion that information.

But, the 11 parking spaces for this high-rise building was confirmed by Mr. Kraft in an email to mhn.com this morning.   Why do you suppose the planning department did not want that unpopular information to be part of its press release and available to the public?

This proposed residential building is at one end of the busy Washington Avenue where parking is already a scarce commodity for the numerous  businesses located along the Street.  This parking policy for the new 326 unit building will only excaberate an already existing crisis.  However, the city has a well deserved reputation for being indifferent to small businesses it has been noted for years.

As Exchange Street was years ago an incubator for small start-up businesses, Washington Avenue has become the new business incubator for the area.  Exchange Street businesses are often financed by national corporations or by well established businesses with branches out-of-state or in other parts of Maine.   The high rents charged for businesses on Exchange Street make it impossible for start-ups to start up in the Greater Exchange Street area anyway. The rents that the start-up  shops of Washington Avenue pay are more affordable.   Many of them are just trying to get a foot in the commercial door and maybe expand their businesses as well

Furthermore, the approval of this plan by the city could mean that the AMVet post located across the street from the developmet may have to sell its valuable property and relocate somewhere else.  It is not known by this blogger if that decsion by the board has been made yet.  That may happen because the Loring post will loose its 20 or so parking spaces for its members at 165 Washington Avenue – that it can’t afford to loose on behalf of members who are handicapped or have limited mobility..

Incidentally, it is rumored that the  parking lot next to the J. J. Nissen Bakery Building is slated to be converted into a housing development – further excrbatding the parking crisis on Washington Avenue.

At the first public meeting earlier this month, Culley said that he expecs the building to be occupied by foreign students attending the Roux Instituate to be located at 1 Beanpot Circle in East Deering. The campus is currently under construction.  Although he has no formal housing agreement with the Roux Institute to this affect, Culley expects the students to “walk or bike” to the East Deering campus.  That could be a mighty cold journey in the middle of winter, don’t you think?  Maybe these foreign students will balk at Culley’s idea for them.  Maybe these foreign students will rent cars to get to the Roux Institute campus, but will have no place to park at 165 Washington Avenue.  Culley’s Dream is someone else’s Nightmare.

This is the second and a duplicate meeting being held because of a date error distributed by city staff for the first meeting held earlier this month.  Because of that misinformation that was made public, this second meeting is  necessary, apparently.  It appears that Acorn Engineering will not be attending this second meeting.

Because of a city ordinance passed back in 2020 by the Portland City Council, a developer is not required to provide any  public parking spaces if the building is within 1/4 of  a public transit location.  165 Washington Avenue is within that boundary and therefore does not have to provide tenant parking for its residents.  Unfortunately, this major policy change was not  publicized by city hall.  Possibly that was because of its unpopularity – do you think?  Planning Department Kevin Kraft did not respond to this blogger’s question as to why this change in policy was not publicized.

For more information, please email KKraft@portlandmaine.gov. Director of the city’s planning department.

For a description of  the first city required meeting on the same plan, please visit post herein dated December 14, 2024.