Two Portland developers have broken ground on a $6.9 million luxury condominium project in the city’s East End, with plans to start development on a nearby office building in the spring.
Fred Forsley, co-founder of Shipyard Brewing Co., and Bateman Partners LLC, developer of the Portland Harbor Hotel and other local projects, on Monday afternoon announced details of the two commercial real estate projects, adjacent to Micucci Grocery store in the India Street neighborhood on the city’s eastern waterfront. The estimated cost of the office building is $11.5 million.
The condo project, at 185 Fore St., will include 10 market-rate units, including two penthouse units. It is expected to be ready for occupancy in September. Co-developer Nathan Bateman said the units are priced from $400,000 to $1 million and that half of the condos already have been sold, including one of the penthouses.
The entire first floor also has been leased to Nine Stones Spa, which is currently located at 250 Commercial St., he said.
The second project will be at 16 Middle St. and is expected to be a mixed-use, five-story, 16,700-square-foot building with retail or commercial use on the first floor and Class A office space on the four floors above. Construction on the building is slated for next spring and will be ready for occupancy in March 2017, the developer said.
Bateman said the developers are in talks with several prospective tenants for the office building.
Both projects originally were announced in May 2014 and already have been approved by the city’s Planning Board. Both are adjacent to Ocean Gateway Garage, which Forsley and his business partners developed a decade ago with tax increment financing, or TIF, after submitting the winning bid to the city for the project. TIF is a way for municipalities to subsidize development by dedicating to the developer future property tax revenue from increases in assessed values within a designated area for a set number of years.
Forsley said in a news conference Monday that the office and residential projects complete a plan that was conceived for the area surrounding the parking garage back when it was built. However, development plans for the property were stalled temporarily after the economic crisis of 2008.
“It was a vision that we had from day one,” he said.
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