The redevelopment replaced poor-quality public housing that stood for 50 years. Sophie Burchell / The Forecaster

On Tuesday, Sept. 10, Portland Mayor Mark Dion ceremonially cut the ribbon at Front Street, officially opening Portland Housing Authority’s 105-unit redevelopment in East Deering. The project was a collaboration between Portland Housing Authority, MaineHousing, the Environmental Protection Agency and the city of Portland.

Phase 1 of the redevelopment was completed by Zachau Construction in July 2023 and consisted of 60 affordable housing units, with the number of bedrooms per unit ranging between one and five. Phase 2 finished in July and supplies 39 units of affordable senior housing intended to support aging in place, according to a project overview from Portland Housing Authority.

The occupied apartments already house eight asylum-seeking families who were previously living in hotels, said Brian Frost, executive director of Portland Housing Authority. Formerly homeless individuals and families reside in 11 of the new units.

“The city continues to support the newly housed individuals as they transition back to permanent housing,” said Frost.

The redevelopment was 12 years in the making due to changing design plans, complex funding sources, the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated supply chain disruptions and labor shortage. The project was funded through MaineHousing, Bath Savings Institution, RBC Capital, Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston and the city.

The $41 million project was also supported by a federal Brownfields Cleanup Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency because the city built the original Front Street neighborhood on a former landfill in 1971. The EPA helped engineer and coordinate the removal of the contaminated soil that remained on the site.

In addition to being built on waste, a health hazard, the original Front Street units were not designed to stand for the 50 years that they did.

In 1971, the city took 200 residential units in the Bayside neighborhood into eminent domain and demolished them to make way for the construction of the Franklin Arterial, according to the Front Street Brownfields grant application, as part of Portland’s urban renewal. The city relocated a portion of the displaced low-income families from Bayside into 50 units at Front Street with the intent that the move was temporary. However, Front Street’s original residents were not assisted in moving back to Bayside, and the prefabricated housing that was built on the former landfill remained until 2021. During these decades, residents experienced poor living conditions that included cracking foundations, wet basements and contaminated soil, said Frost.

For the redevelopment, Portland Housing Authority provided Front Street residents with comprehensive relocation assistance, with options to move into market-rate units, use housing choice vouchers, or transition to other public housing, said Frost. Of the 43 families that left three years ago, 13 returned to the redeveloped neighborhood.

Mayor Mark Dion ceremonially cuts the ribbon to Front Street with help from former Portland Councilor Jill Duson. Sophie Burchell / The Forecaster

The original 1971 neighborhood was colloquially referred to as the “projects” of Portland. Chair of Portland Housing Authority Board of Commissioners Christian MilNeil said this negative nickname symbolized a lack of respect for public housing and its residents.

“It was underfunded, it was neglected, and it was stigmatized, and overpoliced. And that lack of respect was frankly rooted in racism,” said MilNeil.

“What we have now is so much better, and it’s such a credit to the new leadership that we have,” he said. “We now have a city and we have leaders who understand that public housing should not be stigmatized, but welcomed, and we need more of it.”

In his speech to the ceremony’s crowd, the mayor recalled his first encounter with the neighborhood as a young police officer and emphasized the respect its residents deserved.

“I never saw them as ‘projects.’ I thought they were neighborhoods because I asked the sergeant, ‘If they’re projects, when are they scheduled to be completed?’” said Dion. “I firmly believe that this initiative is an expansion in the value and the dynamic of this neighborhood. They are us.”

Dion thanked the past councilors who made this project possible, praising former Portland Councilor Jill Duson’s support of the start of the redevelopment project while she was in office.

“The greatest leaders plant seeds that they will never harvest, but they trust the process, and they trust those who will follow will see that it gets done,” said Dion.

The 99 completed units meet Passive House standards for increased energy efficiency and decreased heating costs. Front Street has multiple indoor community spaces, a generator intended to support medical devices in case of a power outage, free wifi for residents’ telehealth appointments, and close access to Payson Park.

Phase 3 of Front Street is set to be completed in 2026 and will consist of eight townhouse condominiums that can be mortgaged. It is Portland Housing Authority’s first affordable homeownership development project.

The condominiums built in Phase 3 will offer residents a path to homeownership. Sophie Burchell / The Forecaster

“Six of the units will be targeted to households earning less than 120% of the area median income, targeting the Missing Middle and providing a pathway to homeownership, which has become increasingly challenging to attain,” said Frost.

Portland Councilors Kate Sykes, Anna Bullett and Pious Ali attended the ribbon cutting ceremony. On behalf of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, her field representative, Sarah Lawrence, read a letter to the crowd.

“This thoughtful development is precisely what Maine needs so much more of. I applaud the Portland Housing Authority for its use of brownfields,” wrote Pingree.

“I am so pleased that you were able to access these federal cleanup and redevelopment funds to help make this site – at one time an old city dump – a safe, clean and welcoming residential community,” she said.