The Portland Museum of Art on Wednesday faced its first setback in its plan to replace the former Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine with a much larger building.

The Historic Preservation Board recommended Wednesday that the city keep a designation in place that protects the building at 142 Free St. from demolition.

That decision is not binding, however. Board members noted that their purview is more limited than that of the Planning Board and City Council, which will both consider the museum’s application. The City Council will have the final say.

“I feel that the PMA is asking us for something we don’t have the power to give,” member Ashley Keenan said.

The meeting was briefly interrupted by Zoom bombers before continuing.

PMA Director Mark Bessire said after the meeting that the museum will turn its focus to the next steps in the public process.

“The alternative is not an idyllic repurposing of 142 Free St. ‘as is,’ ” he told the board. “The property will never adequately support the museum’s collection, gallery and public needs without transformative changes. In actuality, our only alternative would be a painful shift for our city, joining our neighbors in turning away from Congress Square and reorienting the museum toward Spring Street.”

The board has received public input on both sides of the issue.

Supporters, including the heads of other arts organizations and owners of nearby businesses, have said the building should not be a barrier to the transformative expansion planned for the art museum.

Opponents, including Greater Portland Landmarks, have said the building’s façade is largely unchanged from the 1926 renovation by noted Portland architects John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens.

Carol De Tine, board vice president at Greater Portland Landmarks, testified Wednesday that the preservation nonprofit does not oppose the museum’s plan for a new building but does not believe it requires the demolition of a historic one. She and others cautioned the board against a change that she said would weaken the city’s historic preservation ordinance.

“It more than meets the criteria for such a designation under the ordinance,” De Tine said. “What is really at stake here is the integrity of the historic preservation ordinance and the continued preservation of other contributing structures throughout the city’s districts.”

The building is considered a “contributing structure” to the surrounding Congress Street Historic District, which protects it from demolition. Built in 1830 and later renovated by John Calvin Stevens, it has been home to a theater, church and the Chamber of Commerce.

The Congress Street Historic District stretches from Franklin Street to Deering Avenue and encompasses the entire museum campus. The city designated 142 Free St. as a contributing structure when it created the district in 2009.

The Portland Museum of Art bought the property in 2019 with an eye toward growth. The Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine moved to Thompson’s Point in 2021, and the art museum has been using the Free Street space for offices. Last year, it launched a $100 million campaign to expand and unify its campus, which no longer has adequate space for its collection and staff.

The plan called for an “architecturally significant” building that would either add to or replace the former children’s museum. The winning design announced in January would require razing it for new construction three times its size.

Now, the museum is asking the city to change the building’s status from “contributing” to “noncontributing.” Its leaders say the many changes made to the structure over time have diminished its historical significance, and it should never have been deemed contributing in the first place. Their application includes a lengthy report on the life of the property over nearly 200 years.

The Historic Preservation Board held a workshop on the application in October, and the board members agreed during their discussion that the building clearly meets the criteria to be considered a contributing structure. On Wednesday, the board held a public hearing and made that position their official recommendation. (One member, Valerie Paquin-Gould, recused herself from the discussion and vote.)

The museum focused much of its presentation in both meetings on the potential impacts of its hoped-for replacement at 142 Free St. But members said they were required to limit their analysis to the criteria outlined in the city ordinance, which says a contributing structure must have “sufficient integrity of location, design, condition, materials and workmanship to make it worthy of preservation or restoration.”

“Is there wiggle room for the board to consider the greater context?” chairman Robert O’Brien asked during the public hearing.

“The ordinance is quite clear that for the purposes of the Historic Preservation Board’s review of this type of question, it is very much limited to the minimum criteria for designation and the question of the integrity of the structure,” answered Evan Schueckler, the historic preservation program manager.

Schueckler added that the Planning Board and the City Council can also consider the city’s comprehensive plan as a factor in their reviews.

“In brief, the next steps in this will create some space for a broader consideration of the question,” he said.

The hybrid meeting was briefly interrupted by hateful comments from callers, the latest incident of “Zoom bombing” of racist and antisemitic comments in public forums.

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