Greater Portland Landmarks sued the city over the Portland Museum of Art’s plans to raze the former Children’s Museum building on Free Street to make way for an expansion of the art museum. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

A judge has cleared the way for the Portland Museum of Art to demolish a 19th-century building on Free Street.

Greater Portland Landmarks filed a lawsuit last year to save the former Children’s Museum building at 142 Free St. The art museum wants to raze it to make way for a sweeping glass-and-timber expansion on that site. The parties met for oral arguments in the case in March. Last week, Superior Court Justice Deborah Cashman ruled in the museum’s favor.

The Portland Museum of Art touted the order in a written statement.

“The Portland Museum of Art’s campus expansion is an exciting and forward-looking plan that will create much-needed space for our growing collection while inspiring creativity and innovation in Maine,” said Erik Hayward, president of the museum’s board of trustees. “With the Cumberland County Superior Court’s decision affirming the City Council’s designation change, we’re ready to move ahead.”

Kate Lemos McHale, executive director of Greater Portland Landmarks, said that the nonprofit has seen “an outpouring of moral and financial support” while fighting the lawsuit. The organization now has to decide whether to file an appeal. She and others are concerned that the City Council’s decision and the court’s subsequent order will weaken Portland’s historic preservation ordinance.

“There’s an incredible amount of people who care about this issue,” Lemos McHale said. “It’s beyond what happens to one building. Are our preservation laws going to stay strong? Are people going to protect historic buildings? Are people going to go to the City Council to change very basic standards in our law? The potential for this to be dangerous precedent is very high. We’ve had collaborative conversations with the museum. We hope those can continue. There’s still time for them to develop a plan that incorporates the building and responds to the context of the historic district in a way that doesn’t put so much at stake.”

The museum has raised $48.5 million toward the $100 million goal for its capital campaign. Marcie P. Griswold, a spokesperson for the Portland Museum of Art, said in an email that the next steps will be to submit plans to the city and finalize the construction schedule, but did not provide a timeline for the project.

City spokesperson Jessica Grondin said the museum has not yet requested a demolition permit or submitted plans for the new construction for approval.

“We are pleased with the court’s thorough and well-written decision, and we agree with the result,” Grondin wrote in an email.

The building at 142 Free St. was considered a “contributing” structure to the surrounding Congress Street Historic District, which meant it could not be razed. Built in 1830 and later renovated by architect John Calvin Stevens, it has been home to a theater, a church, the Chamber of Commerce and the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine. The building is not currently in use.

The Portland Museum of Art bought the neighboring property in 2019 with an eye toward growth, and the children’s museum vacated in 2021 for a new home on Thompson’s Point. In 2022, the Portland Museum of Art launched a $100 million capital campaign that would include a major expansion on that site. None of the four finalists in a design competition would have saved the existing building; one design preserved the façade only. The art museum announced a winning design in 2023. Later that year, the Portland Museum of Art finally applied to change the classification of 142 Free St. to “noncontributing,” which would allow for its demolition.

The public hearings stretched over months and generated hours of public comment. The Historic Preservation Board and the planning board both recommended against the change, but the Portland City Council ultimately voted 6-3 to reclassify the building on the basis of “significant alterations since it was originally constructed.” They found that the building lacks integrity of design, materials and workmanship. In June, Greater Portland Landmarks sued the city to appeal that decision and named the art museum as a party-in-interest.

Greater Portland Landmarks argued that the City Council misinterpreted the code and made its decision without enough evidence. The nonprofit also said councilors should have followed the recommendations of the Historic Preservation Board and the planning board. The city and the art museum disagreed with those claims, and also said that Greater Portland Landmarks did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place.

In her order, Cashman agreed that the preservation nonprofit did not have standing to sue. But she considered the main claims in their lawsuit anyway and found that the City Council did not err in its decision to change the status of this building. Her questions were more procedural than architectural, and she focused on whether the councilors did enough to meet the standards outlined in the code and to be in harmony with the comprehensive plan.

“The comprehensive plan here — the ReCode — identifies several goals of historic preservation,” she wrote. “Redesignating 142 Free Street in accordance with the Integrity Standard is certainly consistent with at least some of those goals.”