Mainebiz

W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 13 J U LY 2 8 , 2 0 2 5 F O C U S R E A L E S TAT E / C O N S T R U C T I O N / E N G I N E E R I N G "S tay away from there." Not the best sales pitch for downtown Portland, but that's what a hotel bartender told a New Jersey couple vacationing in Maine when they men- tioned plans to go out for dinner in the Monument Square area. e pedestrian plaza, anchored by a monument to local Civil War soldiers, is at the foot of a three-block stretch of small retailers, cafes and restaurants along Congress Street — a longtime magnet for shoppers and tourists, but more recently also for people living on the streets. Graffiti, overflowing trash cans, drug paraphernalia, boarded-up win- dows and barricaded entryways are common sights, with close to a dozen vacant storefronts laying bare the eco- nomic cost to a city that prides itself as a tourist mecca. Today, the small city has big city problems. Jim Brady, a developer with plans to transform an early 20 th -century bank building on Monument Square into a high-end hotel, can put a number to the costs. Before boarding up the vestibules as a safety precau- tion, Brady's Fathom Cos. was pay- ing around $2,000 a month on secu- rity services and another $3,000 to $5,000 to clean up debris, including human feces and discarded needles. He bought the building for more than $9 million. "Since we boarded up the alcoves, the incident quantities have dimin- ished significantly," says Brady, who aims to open the hotel in 2027. e wooden barricades, spray-painted in red by the fire department, clash with the ornate Beaux Arts façade but blend in with the neighborhood's smattering of patched-up doors and windows preyed on by vandals. Brady says he's angry at the city for "turning a blind eye" to homeless- ness and drug use. He nevertheless remains determined to breathe new life into a historic building in a trou- bled area, like he did on Exchange Street more than a decade ago when he turned a 1920s-era newspaper build- ing into the Press Hotel. e plan comes during a time of stress for Maine's largest city, popu- lation 69,500. Celebrated as Bon Appetit magazine's "Restaurant City of the Year" in 2018, Portland has in recent months gotten less favorable attention from the national press. In April, the New York Times reported about the scourge of drug addiction in Portland, with an extensive story and photos. '100 times worse' As a 16-year Portland resident who manages several downtown residen- tial and commercial properties, Rob Hastings has a front-row seat to what's going on in town. He says that homelessness and drug use are "100 times worse since the pandemic," and that he'd like to see more police on the streets. "I feel safe myself, because I'm a guy who's in relatively good shape," he says, "but sometimes there are young ladies who work at places that close at 1 a.m. If there's nobody around and somebody is in the parking lot, I fear for their safety." While not all crimes are reported, Portland Police Department data provided to Mainebiz show that there were 2,502 calls in a one-mile area along Congress Street between January and July, with 17 for criminal mischief (including property damage) and 42 for theft. e total is 1.5 times higher than 1,583 calls for the same period in 2024 and triple the tally in 2019. A lot of those calls are from business owners like David Turin, a long-time restaurateur whose staff, customers and premises are frequent crime targets. "Our worst year with police was 2021, when I think we had 198 police calls in the summer," he says in a downstairs office stacked with wine cartons and culinary awards. C O N T I N U E D O N F O L L OW I N G PA G E » OFFICES IN SOUTH PORTLAND, SANFORD, AND BRIDGTON, MAINE PROUD TO BE 100% EMPLOYEE-OWNED When someone walks in with a piece of land and an idea; then we get to work! Gets Us Excited? You Know What In the short term, we expect vacancies to persist in the corridor and additional businesses to announce plans to close or relocate. — Quincy Hentzel Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce

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