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V O L . X X V I N O. I I JA N UA R Y 2 7 , 2 0 2 0 16 C O M M E R C I A L D E V E L O P M E N T ayside Village Apartments at 132 Marginal Way in Portland is a former student dormitory that's a sizeable eye-catcher from I-295, with a façade in a palette of greens and tan. Inside, lengthy corridors on four floors are divided into 100 "quads." Each quad has four bedrooms situated around a common living space and kitchen. But when the dorm opened in 2008, the mission to offer housing aimed at students never really took off. e property has gone through several owners who have had vary- ing degrees of success in operating it solely for students or, more recently, also offering it for single-room-occu- pancy rentals. Now Portland developer Tom Watson and his partners have acquired the property for $20.85 mil- lion and expect to invest another $11 million to redevelop it for workforce rental housing. Watson owns Port Property Management/Tom Watson & Co. in Portland and is a partner in Bush Watson, a real estate investment firm. "We said, 'Look, the city of Portland needs workforce housing,'" he says. "'Let's take these 100 quads and turn them into workforce housing apart- ments,' which is what we do and what the city needs. We saw a great oppor- tunity here." Portland's economic development director, Greg Mitchell, says the proj- ect comes at a time when demand for housing remains high for "the missing middle," the city's middle-income needs. "It all helps," says Mitchell. "We're looking to activate single-family homes, apartments, rentals as well as for-sale units across the board. Different housing products are needed to attract millen- nials, single people, couples, families — and to strengthen the attractiveness of Portland on the marketplace. It's a comprehensive approach." Dorm fail Bayside Village, which is 238,301 square feet, is less than a mile from both the University of Southern Maine and Maine College of Art. But it's also in a neighborhood that has seen tremendous growth in the past decade, with much of the surround- ing West Bayside area taking off. It is walking distance from a Trader Joe's, a Whole Foods and a Hannaford. It is amid a retail and professional strip that includes medical offices, pharma- cies and specialty retailers. F O C U S Portland developer Portland developer Tom Watson Tom Watson and his partners are investing $11 and his partners are investing $11 million in the redevelopment a former million in the redevelopment a former student dormitory at 132 Marginal student dormitory at 132 Marginal Way into workforce housing rentals. Way into workforce housing rentals. Division of 12 "quads" into two apart- Division of 12 "quads" into two apart- ments each is underway. ments each is underway. P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY We said, 'Look, the city of Portland needs workforce housing. Let's take these 100 quads and turn them into workforce housing apartments.' — Tom Watson $32M $32M $32M B B B y L a u r i e S c h r e i b e r Turning a failed student dorm into 200 workforce apartments Turning a failed student dorm into 200 workforce apartments

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