REAL ESTATE & DEVELOPMENT

Portland enacts temporary moratorium on waterfront development

The Portland City Council voted unanimously Monday to enact a six-month moratorium on development along its working waterfront – a move meant to bide time to address long-simmering tensions between fishermen and developers. City Manager Jon Jennings, who sponsored the moratorium, said he will convene a task force of about 11 people in the coming days to address myriad issues affecting the waterfront – from zoning to traffic to enforcing current rules. He also suggested the city look at granting tax breaks to pier owners who improve their piers. The moratorium, which will expire June 15, was supported by both pier owners and fishermen, who have been collecting signatures for a citizen referendum that, if enacted, would block non-marine construction on the city’s piers for five years. Read the story.

New Wex headquarters on pace for March opening

The Wex Inc. headquarters building in downtown Portland is nearing completion, with workers putting the finishing touches on amenities such as a spacious rooftop deck and a giant fish tank. The building, which will house roughly 400 Wex employees, is scheduled for an anticipated final inspection in late January and a planned ribbon-cutting in early March. The headquarters project, which broke ground in October 2017 at the corner of Hancock and Thames streets across from Portland’s eastern waterfront, represents a significant expansion for Wex. The payment-processing technology firm has about 1,200 employees in South Portland and has been growing rapidly through acquisitions and internal sales growth. Read the story.

Developers emphasize industrial use in revised Falmouth project

A revised development plan for land next to the Falmouth Shopping Center replaces a proposed hotel, multi-level parking garage and large indoor sports complex with warehouse, light manufacturing and office space. The owners of Falmouth Shopping Center on U.S. Route 1 have submitted a revised expansion plan for the property that they said would not require any zoning changes to develop. The “plan B” proposal is for a smaller development, and eliminates a component of the original expansion plan to purchase and redevelop the Maine Turnpike’s Falmouth Spur ramps to Route 1. Councilors asked the developers, Joseph Soley and Jonathan Cohen, to propose an alternative plan that would not require zoning changes to the property. The council plans to accept public comment on the two proposals at its Jan. 14 meeting. Read the story.

Challenge to Market Basket in Westbrook is expected to be dropped

A Westbrook official says a mysterious company that opposes a new shopping center in the city is dropping its legal challenge to the project. Westbrook’s attorneys were notified that Westbrook Property Holding LLC intends to withdraw a lawsuit it filed in Cumberland County court against the city and Dirigo Center Developers, City Administrator Jerre Bryant said. In the lawsuit it filed in October, Westbrook Property Holding asked the court to overturn the planning board’s approval of a site plan for a new shopping center anchored by a Market Basket supermarket between Main Street and Larrabee Road. Westbrook Property Holding said the zoning did not explicitly allow grocery stores and the project’s approval violated its due process rights. The city says there is nothing wrong with the planning board’s decision and that grocery stores are an approved use in the development zone. It is unclear who is behind Westbrook Property Holding, which lists an address of a one-bedroom apartment near the site. Read the story.

Home sales continue record pace

Maine home sales continued to buck national trends last month, with both volume and prices climbing. Nationally, sales of existing single-family homes fell 6.7 percent from the same month a year ago, but in Maine the volume of November sales rose almost 3 percent, according to a release from the Maine Association of Realtors. The median sale price in Maine also rose, increasing 9.5 percent to $219,000 compared with November 2017. Nationally, prices increased by only about half that amount – 5 percent – to a median of $260,500. The robust activity puts Maine on track to beat its record in home sales set last year when 17,633 existing single-family homes sold, an increase of 0.7 percent from 2016. It was the third consecutive year that sales volume set a statewide record. Through November, Maine’s residential real estate sales volume is 2.7 percent ahead of 2017. Read the story.

Hotel site sold to developer

The site of a planned hotel near Portland’s western waterfront has been sold to a hotel development and investment firm for an undisclosed sum. New Hampshire- and Florida-based developer Norwich Partners LLC purchased the property on Commercial Street at the site of the former Rufus Deering Lumber Co. with plans to construct a six-story, 155-room hotel, according to a broker involved in the deal. The property is south of Maple Street between Commercial and York streets, across from the city’s western waterfront. The seller was developer Reger Dasco Properties of Portland, according to the broker, Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P. in Boston. Read the story.

ENERGY

Audit places blame on weather, rate increase for high electric bills

An independent audit has concluded that skyrocketing electricity bills last winter cannot be blamed on Central Maine Power’s new billing and metering system, but the company made the situation worse with its poor response to a flood of customer complaints. A report released Thursday by the Liberty Consulting Group identified “significant gaps” in the rollout of new billing software, noting that lapses in testing and training personnel resulted in errors that affected more than 100,000 accounts.

But overall, the company’s meter system accurately records and bills customers, auditors said. Errors “proved minimal in number and in dollar value,” they reported.

High bills last winter – up to four times what some customers expected – were the result of cold weather and a rate increase, not a systemic problems, the report concluded. Hundreds of customers filed complaints with regulators over what they saw as exorbitantly high bills. Read the story.

HEALTH CARE

ACA sign-ups down slightly from 2017

Maine’s Affordable Care Act sign-ups for 2019 are down by 5.5 percent, according to federal data released on Wednesday. The slight decline reflects a strong interest in purchasing ACA plans despite numerous efforts by the Trump administration to undermine the law, health experts said. The numbers show plans selected from Nov. 1 through the end of open enrollment, Dec. 15. Maine had 71,577 ACA enrollees in health plans that will start in January, down from the 75,809 who signed up for plans in 2018. Nationally, the year-over-year drop-off was 4.1 percent. The ACA marketplace is where individuals – often self-employed or part-time workers who traditionally have been priced out of health insurance – can purchase health benefits. Read the story.

Health care groups merging

A Maine organization that for 15 years has tried to improve statewide access to quality health services is merging with a Connecticut nonprofit. The boards of Maine Quality Counts and Qualidigm, a national health care consulting think tank based in Wethersfield, voted to merge effective Jan. 1. The merger is expected to create a network of offices across New England, and to consolidate expertise so that the organization is positioned to lead health care quality improvement efforts throughout the region, according to a media release announcing the merger. Read the story.

TRANSPORTATION

Veteran transportation manager tapped for commissioner post

Gov.-elect Janet Mills announced Thursday she will nominate Houlton native Bruce Van Note to serve as the next commissioner of the Maine Department of Transportation.

Van Note is currently the director of policy and planning at the Maine Turnpike Authority. He has 25 years of experience in the field of transportation in Maine, including 12 years as deputy commissioner at Maine DOT, where he managed every aspect of the department, including policy, legislative affairs, strategic planning, budget, capital project delivery, maintenance and operations, and freight and businesses services. Mills, the attorney general and a former member of the Legislature, said she became familiar with Van Note in those roles. Read the story.

High-speed EV chargers planned for thoroughfares

The first strand in a statewide web of high-speed electric vehicle chargers will go into place next year. Efficiency Maine, an agency that promotes energy efficiency, has contracted ChargePoint Inc., a California company, to install and operate seven charging stations on highways from southern Maine to the Quebec border. The stations are the start of a three-phase plan to establish publicly available, fast chargers on important thoroughfares for tourists and Maine residents. Ultra-fast charging stations will first be installed at the Maine Turnpike visitor plazas in Kennebunk (northbound and southbound) and West Gardiner, on Route 302 in the Bridgton and Naples area, in Farmington near the intersection of Route 2 and Route 27, in Jackman and in another location along Route 201. Read the story.

MARIJUANA

New law opens business opportunities for medical marijuana providers

A new state law that went into effect last week allows business-to-business medical marijuana sales. Previously, medical businesses had to grow and make almost everything themselves. The new law allows them to sell up to 30 percent of a harvest or inventory to each other, increasing economic opportunities for them and product selection for Maine’s 50,000 medical patients. The law, adopted in July over a gubernatorial veto, also enables patients to get a medical card if a doctor deems marijuana medically beneficial, eliminating state-sanctioned qualifying conditions like cancer, chronic pain or AIDS. It also grants caregivers the right to open shops and hire more than a single employee, and will grant six new medical dispensary licenses, giving Maine a total of 14, among other changes. Read the story.

AQUACULTURE

Oyster hatchery approved for Harpswell

Harpswell will be home to one of the state’s few commercial oyster hatcheries after selectmen approved a lease with Running Tide Technologies Inc., a South Portland company looking to open a hatchery at Mitchell Field early next year. The town has been meeting with the company since late September to hammer out a lease for a 1.33-acre parcel of the town’s marine business district at the site of the former Navy fuel depot. The property includes a garage and concrete slab that Running Tide Technologies Inc. hopes to transform into a hatchery. Oyster farmers rely on the hatcheries for seed, which they then grow over multiple years until the oysters reach market size. Running Tide Technologies Inc. has four aquaculture leases, all in Harpswell. Read the story.

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