PORTLAND — A zoning skirmish in the West End has enough subplots to fill a novel.

It features two of the city’s most famous architects, a prominent Australian businessman who heads a global technology company, and a landmark on the National Register of Historic Places – the Williston-West Church on Thomas Street.

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Paul Stevens, a great-grandson of architect John Calvin Stevens, talks about the historic features of the Williston-West Church on Thomas Street in Portland. A prominent Australian businessman is seeking a zoning change to permit offices at the church’s attached parish house. John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

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To add international intrigue, the FBI is reviewing the Australian businessman’s company to determine whether it improperly obtained technology developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, according to several newspapers in Australia, which are following the story because a leader of a political party there has family connections to the firm.

Locally, the conflict is complex but limited to a small section of Portland’s most prestigious neighborhood, the Western Promenade.

The businessman, Frank Monsour, wants to set up offices in the former church parish house. He says the zoning change would allow him to pay for the restoration of the sanctuary.

The neighborhood, however, has long had a zero-tolerance policy for commercial encroachment.

While supporters of the proposal say it would fund the restoration of a deteriorating landmark, some neighbors question whether that’s a good enough reason to loosen the restrictions on offices. “Do you sacrifice a neighborhood for the sake of the building?” asked Charles Remmel.

Remmel, who started the Western Promenade Neighborhood Association in the early 1970s, said he’s open to alternatives but the current proposal is too intrusive, including plans for the sanctuary to be used as a community hall for public events such as musical performances.

The neighborhood association plans a community discussion of the issue at 7 p.m. Monday in Sills Hall at the Waynflete School. The Planning Board is scheduled to take up the issue March 13.

The issue involves trade-offs, said Anne Pringle, the association’s president. Rejection of the proposal could delay the church’s restoration for years, she said.

“People need to weigh that potential with allowing office space and turning back the clock on more than 40 years of zoning restrictions,” she said.

The sanctuary has been largely vacant since last summer when its congregation, Williston-West United Church of Christ, merged with Immanuel Baptist Church and moved services to High Street.

Monsour, who heads Global Majella Technologies, which creates disaster management software, bought the property in December for $657,000. The CEO of the company’s American division is Arthur Cleaves, former head of the New England office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

According to Australian newspapers such as the Brisbane Times and the Sydney Morning Herald, the FBI is reviewing whether the company inappropriately obtained mapping technology for war zones developed by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The story is causing a political stir in Australia because Monsour’s son-in-law, Campbell Newman, is the ambitious leader of the Liberal National Party of Queensland, the second-largest state in Australia.

Remmel, who has been following the story in the Australian press, said it raises questions about whether Monsour can be trusted to do what he says he will do.

“If they are that controversial, what the heck are we buying into?” he said.

Greg Comcowich, a special agent with the FBI’s Boston division, which has jurisdiction over Maine, said he could not confirm or deny that the agency is investigating the firm.

Jed Rathband, Monsour’s spokesman for the Portland project, said the FBI began looking into the company in response to a lawsuit filed in New Hampshire by a competitor, Global Relief Technologies. Rathband said the lawsuit has been dismissed and the FBI investigation has been suspended.

Global Majella Technologies has an office in the Time and Temperature Building on Congress Street in Portland.

Monsour wants to use the church’s three-story parish house as a home for him and his family when they visit the United States, and to use the first floor for office space for his employees.

Although the company’s immediate plans call for moving three employees to the parish house, it is seeking a zoning change to allow as many as 14 employees there.

The house is now being leased for a day-care center, which is allowed in the zone. Offices are not allowed.

The office space would be leased by the company at above-market rents, allowing the company to invest in renovating the property, said Mary Costigan, an attorney representing Monsour. The sanctuary needs a half-million dollars worth of repairs, Costigan said.

The proposed zoning change would require Monsour to immediately make $260,000 in repairs to the property, including replacing the asphalt roof of the sanctuary with slate and copper flashing, adding copper gutters and restoring windows, the iron fence and stained-glass windows.

The church, built in 1877, was designed by Francis Fassett, a prominent architect who designed Portland’s Baxter Library, Corthell Hall at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham and other Maine landmarks.

In 1904, the church hired John Calvin Stevens, who had trained under Fassett, to design the approximately 11,000-square-foot building attached to the church.

Monsour, who is in Australia and was not available for comment Wednesday, loves restoring historic structures, said Matthew Winch, one of the project’s architects.

“He wants a signature building of historic importance,” Winch said. “He found it in Williston-West.”

The church was built in High Victorian Gothic style – which features buttresses and pointed arches – and includes highly decorative features found in Queen Anne-style structures, said Paul Stevens, a neighbor and a great-grandson of John Calvin Stevens.

The sanctuary’s 14 stained-glass windows were created using all of the historic methods of glass-making. For the parish house, Stevens said, his great-grandfather used a new material, concrete bricks, as a decorative feature rather than the more expensive limestone used for the sanctuary.

He supports Monsour’s proposal because it would restore the building and save it from further deterioration.

It’s hard to find buyers for old churches, he said. In southern Maine, seven churches have been on the market for an average of two years.

Stevens said he would want the sanctuary turned into the West End’s version of the St. Lawrence Church on Munjoy Hill, a landmark building that was sold off by its congregation. The church’s sanctuary was razed after a partial roof collapse exposed structural problems.

He said a few office workers in the parish house would not have any more impact on the neighborhood than a church congregation or a day-care center.

The zoning change request is a “very special case” because it is the only large building of its kind in the residential area, Stevens said. The change wouldn’t set a precedent for a “wave” of zoning changes that would lower property values, as critics contend, he said.

“I think the reverse is true,” he said. “If someone isn’t found to restore and maintain the chapel, and the church falls into disrepair, the exact opposite is true.”

Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at:

tbell@mainetoday.com

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