From staff reports
PORTLAND – The ceremonial groundbreaking for the renovation of the Cumberland County Civic Center will be held next Wednesday, Aug. 22 at 11 a.m.
An artist rendering of the exterior of the Cumberland County Civic Center, which is expected to undergo a $33 million renovation beginning in August.
The Maine Mall is closing in on 100% occupancy with the addition of new tenants J. Crew and Lush Handmade Cosmetics this month. The South Portland shopping mall has more than 1 million square feet of retail space and will be fully occupied once temporary retailers open for the holiday season, the Portland Press Herald reported.
Craig Gorris, the mall's manager, told the newspaper the two retailers will occupy a total of 6,000 square feet and will have a positive impact on sales and merchandising.
Nationally, the average vacancy rate for regional shopping malls in the United States was 8.9% in the second quarter of this year, according to the real estate research firm Reis Inc. That compares with an 11-year high of 9.4% in the third quarter of 2011 and a low of 4.9% in the second quarter of 2001, according to Reis.
Two developers have signed a purchase-and-sale agreement to buy the former Portland Press Herald Building at 390 Congress St. The building is near the historic Old Port District and across the street from City Hall.
Jim Brady, former president of the Olympia Cos., and Kevin Bunker, a downtown redevelopment advocate and developer, plan to convert the now-gutted building into a 100-room boutique hotel with a first-floor restaurant, according toPortland Press Herald. The two are buying the building from John Cacoulidis, president of Grand Metro Builders of New York Corp., who purchased it and the newspaper's printing plant for $6.2 million in 2009 from parent company MaineToday Media Inc., and initially had planned to renovate the building into office space.
The developers said they plan to begin construction in the spring of 2013 and be open for business a year later, the newspaper reported.
Brady told the newspaper that the Portland market is strong, and that there will be adequate demand for a new boutique hotel – notwithstanding the proposed $105 million hotel, restaurant and event center on Thompson's Point approved by the planning board in June.
At the beginning of 2012, it was predicted that we would continue to see a fairly flat market in the downtown and suburban office market and that has proven somewhat true throughout the first 7 months of this year. We are experiencing some movement from office tenants, large and small, that have previously been in Class B and C spaces as they look to improve their positioning by gravitating to some of the vacant Class A spaces. Several large Portland area office tenants relocated to newer redeveloped waterfront spaces within the past year; creating some rather large vacancies that are very attractive to office tenants who are moving into and benefitting from aggressive landlords looking to fill their buildings. Downtown office space is leasing typical in the $12-$14 per s/f modified gross range with some of the higher end buildings able to achieve numbers greater than that.
Retailer Bull Moose, which sells new and used music, movies, video games and books, said it plans to open a store in South Portland this fall, marking its 11th location.
Green Crossing Blue, a sister company of Bull Moose, bought the former Blockbuster store for $1.12 million in March, according to city tax records.
Bull Moose had tried to open in South Portland last year at the former Border's Books & Music location at the Maine Mall, but the store was bought by Books-A-Million.
Bull Moose was started in 1989 in Brunswick by Bowdoin College student Brett Wickard. The company now has more than 100 employees. Bull Moose operates eight stores in Maine and two in New Hampshire.
Correction: This story was revised at 12:55 p.m., July 12, 2012, to correctly name the company Green Crossing Blue. Also, the company is a sister company of Bull Moose, not a holding company.
