Armory arts center: South Portland's vacant landmark could be reborn as a cultural icon

published in the Portland Phoenix

A 25,000-square-foot building sits on just shy of three acres at the foot of the south end of the Casco Bay Bridge. Vacant since 1996, the former South Portland armory remains in limbo. its owner, the moribund Museum of Glass and Ceramics, declared bankruptcy last year, before ever moving in.

Even a wealthy real-estate developer, Cape Elizabeth's Greg Boulos, a partner in the Boulos Company, one of Maine's largest development firms, last month withdrew an offer to buy the building. He had not expressed any specific plans for the building.

But the armory would be the perfect spot for a multi-disciplinary arts center, with room for a performance-and-exhibition space, soundproof rehearsal rooms, photo darkrooms, small offices for business activities, and ample parking.

All of those things are needed in greater Portland, and an arts-oriented developer was interested enough to want to tour the building after hearing the idea.

REAL POSSIBILITIES

The building is in a landmark position at the entrance to South Portland, an area used to lots of traffic, where attracting more wouldn't be a real problem.

There is room for parking on the armory property, as well as on an adjoining lot owned by Central Maine Power (CMP).

John Carroll, CMP's manager of communications and company relations, said the company had been in talks with the museum about using some of CMP's land — a transmission corridor under high-tension power lines — as a parking area. Carroll said the company would be "open to" discussing a similar arrangement with another owner of the building.

But the real possibilities are inside.

The building's formal entryway, with three doors facing the bridge, is a beautiful space, with wood paneling and brick features reminiscent of government buildings of the early 1940s — when public spaces still sported some degree of grandeur in addition to cheap functionality.

Paint flakes and pieces of broken drop-ceiling tile crunch underfoot in the lobby, a bright space on a rainy day, even with no overhead lights.

Facing the entrance is a reception-style office, with a sliding glass window and side door. To the left is a large space with two offices and a storage area. To the right is a three-office suite with a storage room. (On the wall in one of this suite's offices is a phone jack labeled in red "Hot Line President.")

A hallway runs the width of the building, with small offices and what is now storage space off of it. With a little plumbing, the windowless storage rooms would be excellent — and roomy — darkrooms.

Upstairs is another pair of office suites, with funky skylights in the ceiling. Across the hall are two viewing galleries, long rooms with windows overlooking the building's star attraction: a full-size basketball court, 150 feet long and 100 feet wide, with a double-height ceiling complete with steel beams for rafters.

On each side of the ground-floor entrance to the court are storage areas or small offices.

And running the length of the court on both sides, behind massive garage-type doors, are equipment bays once used by the National Guard to service their vehicles. There are storage spots here and smaller offices, like parts desks at a car dealer.

A group of arts organizations, or individual artists, all looking for office space, gallery or performance space, or even just a conference room to hold business meetings, could get together to purchase the building. Each of them could have some office space, sharing the gymnasium area, which could be easily refitted into a performance space with shared lighting and technical equipment. A part of the gym could be made into a conference room, or even a small gallery for visual arts. The equipment bays could be walled off and made into music-rehearsal spaces.

The common spaces could also be made available for rental by other groups, on a shared-revenue model or even at a flat fee, to help generate revenue.

WHAT IT WOULD TAKE

Starting with the obvious, the entire building could use a floor-to-ceiling paint job.

There are a couple of small bathrooms, but nothing on the scale of what would be needed to serve a performance audience. There no elevator to the second floor. And there is no central heating-system — for some reason the National Guard took it when they left.

But the armory building could be had for $20 a square foot — a bargain-basement deal if ever there was one. The property has outstanding mortgages and taxes due totaling right around $615,000. It is valued at $600,000 in the museum's bankruptcy filing, though the city assessor's office rates it at $515,400.

Boulos had offered $625,000, but pulled out after failing to get an extension to a 45-day deal, according to bankruptcy trustee William Howison, who has control of the building until it is sold. Howison said Boulos wanted eight months to get permits to develop the property.

"He wanted more time and I wasn't willing to agree to it" because a Chapter-7 bankruptcy is supposed to be a relatively quick liquidation of assets, rather than a months-long process, Howison said. Boulos was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

Fred W. Bopp III, an attorney with Perkins Thompson who is representing Howison, said the deal should at minimum pay off the mortgages and taxes, and ideally would generate some additional income to pay off other creditors the museum has.

"We are still trying to see if we can put together a sale that makes sense," Bopp said. Neither he nor Howison would talk about how much interest, if any, the building has generated. No offers other than Boulos's have been filed with the bankruptcy court.

What could be done with the building "depends on how much money you have," Howison said. The building is zoned as a residential property, allowing no more than four housing units per acre, or a church, school, museum, or municipal building. It also could allow "recreational or community activity buildings" if they were run as non-profit organizations.

For certain uses, a buyer might need to get a zoning change or variance from the city, though the property is in a high-traffic area next to the fire and police station and across Broadway from a busy shopping area.

The zoning has limited "somewhat" interest from developers, Howison said.

If he cannot sell the building, he will have to get the mortgagors to accept less than their full investment as repayment, or let them foreclose and perhaps auction the building.

INTEREST GROWS

The amount of money involved is a good fit, according to David Shorette, treasurer of the Children's Theatre of Maine, which offered roughly $800,000 for a building in Westbrook last year.

"We'd like to buy a building" and "$600,000 seems quite doable," he said. "I think the location is perfect," though it may have asbestos, which could increase the cost of renovations.

Shorette said there is a need for more room for artists to work and practice. His wife is a dancer, and groups with which she performs are always trying to find rehearsal space and end up changing locations and times often to make schedules work.

The city of South Portland has been interested in the building for a decade. It offering $250,000 for the armory to the state in 1996, then upped its offer to $350,000 in 2001. The city is considering whether to make another offer now.

According to South Portland city attorney Mary Kahl, the armory building has been discussed as a possible new home for the public-works department or for offices for South Portland's city-hall, both of which agencies are slated for new facilities or relocation.

South Portland mayor Maxine Beecher said one problem could be parking — though a CMP agreement could help — and another could be access, because the site is right off a busy intersection with traffic-control islands preventing people from turning into it when heading west on Broadway.

She said there has been talk of housing small art galleries in the building, but zoning restrictions were an unknown factor (though such use might be allowed if the building was owned by a non-profit group).

"I always wanted us to have it" for the city, she said, with the idea of keeping a part of it — including the picturesque front facade — and possibly selling a portion of the property.

Beecher said she liked the idea of drawing more artists to the city and said the schools might be able to get more involved with professional artists and creators.

Artists are looking for more space.

An idea like this one has already been "floated about," according to Jessica Tomlinson, who is active in several capacities in the arts community, including as director of public relations at Maine College of Art, a board member at the Portland Arts and Cultural Alliance, a member of Governor John Baldacci's council on the creative economy, and a member of the Maine Arts Commission.

"Portland is just getting really pricey," which means "So-Po starts becoming really attractive," she said. A lot of people go to restaurants and beaches in South Portland, and "I think we're going to see more shifting" of arts as well.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to the armory, Tomlinson said.

"It's located in the middle of a massive intersection," which could be a problem for some tenants seeking quieter quarters.

Tomlinson said the building's purchase price is not a real obstacle, but the costs of renovation could be prohibitive.

The building could meet many needs, however. "We still need a black-box theater in this town," and more dance space and rehearsal space would be snapped up quickly, she projected.

Such a building could allow for the "consolidation of resources" — e.g. sharing the cost of a receptionist and even a staff accountant — and owning a building could provide artists with better security for their businesses, she said. "We're all struggling alone in similar ways" trying to protect investments and provide for the future, she said.

Tomlinson liked the idea if the offices were handled on a condominium-style plan, where artists or groups owned their own office space and then paid monthly fees to handle upkeep of the building's common spaces.

She foresaw some trouble with the actual organization of such a project. "Arts organizations have incredible personalities and needs" but those sometimes stand in the way of organizing, she said. Turning the space into a working artist's center would require leadership, including "a small core committed group of individuals" plus some "lightning rods" who have the skills to handle complex tasks like funding and permitting.

"Portland really lacks those true arts champions-slash-heroes," she said. "All the ingredients are here," but "we just really need a cook."

Tomlinson said she is "looking for some new energy" from people who have done this sort of thing before in other places.

Tanja Hollander, one of the organizers of the Bakery Photographic Collective, shares Tomlinson's concern about organization.

"Organizing artists is one of the hardest things to do," she said. "Everybody has their own ideas."

The Bakery group, of about 20 people, have "talked about buying something," but that's years in the future if at all, she said. The group now rents space in a Pleasant Street building.

Hollander also liked the condo-style idea, where "everybody owns their own studio." That, she said, would free up time for artists to be artists, rather than building administrators and contractors.

"In theory, I think it's a great idea. In practice I don't know how that would work," especially if the artists didn't know each other going in, she said.

"I think that artists should really think about owning their studios," though she admitted that because of property costs and artists' income, "a lot of artists don't think that they can buy anything."

COULD IT BE REAL?

Mike Levine of Acorn Productions made a brief business model for a similar idea a couple of years back, but didn't get very far because financing was too big a challenge for him to handle with his other commitments.

"There is a lot of interest in the arts community," he said, including from groups without office, performance, and rehearsal space.

His bigger question was "do you build the collaborations first ... or do you just sort of take the plunge," what he called the "Field of Dreams" approach, where a person or group goes out and creates an artists center and then hopes the artists come.

Levine has decided for himself that he will seek a smaller rehearsal space for Acorn, and then see if other groups or artists want to collaborate and potentially share it.

But in his research for the business plan, he found artists and musicians and others were already paying between $40,000 and $50,000 a year in rent for creative space. For him that meant enough money to rent or buy about 1500 square feet in Portland, covering not just rent but also utilities, maintenance, and other overhead, including possibly a skeleton staff.

Such a project would "need someone who's willing to be a tireless exhorter." Levine expressed willingness to be involved "but not as the lead person."

He said he had also considered partnering with a retail business such as a bar or a coffee shop to generate consistent foot traffic.

His estimates did not include a capital campaign, which he said would be made harder if the building — like the armory — did not have an official designation as a historic building. He said grants for the St. Lawrence Arts Center were easier to come by because the group there was not only creating an art space, but was restoring a dilapidated historic site.

Levine warned that "the bigger the space, the harder the project is to pull off," and said his research into similar ideas showed "the only successful ones were where the city bought the building and leased it to the non-profits for a dollar a year." That freed up rental income for paying off construction loans to refit the building.

"If the city of South Portland wants to do that, I'm sure there would be a lot of interested parties," he said.

The city may be interested, but there is a commercial developer also curious about the idea.

Charlie Hewitt, a painter, printer, and sculptor born in Brunswick and now back in Maine after many years in New York City, estimated a group would need to collect $150,000 for a down payment and come up with $4000 to $5000 for mortgage payments every month. Hewitt is now at work developing high-end artists' live-work condos on Congress Street, and said that model would not be profitable given the space and condition of the armory building.

But as a group of shared offices with a large common space — even split up to handle several uses — the armory model could work, he said.

The equipment bays off to the side could be rented or even sold as storage spaces, potentially making up the whole down-payment amount.

Some organization with some good backing would need to hold the mortgage, Hewitt said. A group of organizations working together could get their separate backers each to put up some small portion of the money, and would still generate plenty of capital, he said.

Sharing the monthly costs among several groups could mean as many as 12 organizations or artists paying between $300 and $400 a month to own and maintain their own spaces.

"That much space could create a whole cultural scene," possibly bringing architects and other independent professionals into closer proximity with working artists, he said.

The large gym could be split into three black-box theaters, sharing lights and sound equipment, running in repertory. There would also be room for an 800- or 1000-square-foot gallery for visual arts, as well as a conference room, he estimated.

Hewitt liked the idea so much he considered taking the lead on the project, and wanted to see the building's interior.

"It's a good old-fashioned artist's idea that's going to be challenging everybody to use it," he said.

Senators fight snooping: Our voices in Washington, DC

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Maine senator Olympia Snowe is leading the charge to find out why President Bush authorized spying on US citizens without bothering to seek the approval of the secret federal court that generally rubber-stamps requests for the surveillance of Americans.

After a New York Times report that Bush allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept phone calls and emails between US citizens and people overseas who have been linked to terrorism, Snowe and four other members of the Senate Intelligence Committee called for a congressional investigation.

The NSA is charged with intelligence-gathering outside the country, but can seek warrants from a secret federal court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, to spy on American citizens in the US.

Bush’s order, in effect since 2002, has drawn concern from judges on the court over whether information gathered without a warrant has been used later to justify other intelligence operations in the US, the Washington Post reported last week.

Citing a second-hand report from anonymous informants, the Post reported that the court granted 1754 warrants in 2004 and rejected none.

One of the FISA court’s 11 judges, James Robertson, resigned, apparently in protest, but will keep his seat on the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Snowe, another Republican senator, and three Democrats have called for a joint inquiry by the Senate’s judiciary and intelligence committees. Judiciary committee chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has said he will begin those hearings in January.

Senator Susan Collins, also a Republican and the chairman of the homeland-security committee, is also concerned about the situation and has asked for a briefing from the NSA, as well as a congressional investigation. Her committee does not have jurisdiction over the NSA.

Bush administration officials have repeatedly said Bush did not break any laws by approving the surveillance of US citizens without the agreement of a judge.

The revelations about spying hindered the passage of a revision to the USA PATRIOT Act, whose name is an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.”

The House approved a four-year extension to the act, with some revisions, on December 14, over the objections of Maine representatives Tom Allen and Mike Michaud.

Snowe and Collins sought a three-month extension of the existing law, to allow lawmakers to make more revisions to protect civil liberties. When a compromise was introduced — over Bush’s objections — to extend the law for six months, Snowe and Collins both agreed, but the extension was reduced to five weeks in a last-minute exchange between the House and Senate, with most members of both bodies already at home for the holidays.

On another front, when Snowe and Collins are asked their position on drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they will be able to answer, John Kerry-like, “I voted for it before I voted against it.”

Last week, both Republican senators from Maine voted to end a filibuster against a defense-spending bill that also included legalization of drilling in ANWR.

But when the filibuster held, Collins and others moved to get ANWR out of the defense bill. When Alaska senator Ted Stevens, a Republican who has championed drilling in the 19-million-acre preserve, agreed, Snowe and Collins both voted with the 93-0 majority to pass the defense bill, and returned to their long-held positions of opposing drilling in the refuge. Maine’s Democratic representatives were split on the matter, with Tom Allen voting for the conjoined defense-and-drilling bill December 19, and Mike Michaud opposing it.

It's their news

published in the Portland Phoenix

WGME Channel 13 may be running ads lamenting how expensive it is to do business in Maine, but the company is actually getting a pretty good deal.

"Our contract ran out December 1, 2004, and we have not had a pay increase for two years," says Matt Beck, shop steward for WGME's back-of-the-house union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1837, which represents about 50 photographers, technicians, editors, producers, directors, and engineers — just about anybody who doesn't appear on screen — at the station.

They and the folks who do appear on screen say they have been trying to get back to the bargaining table since the summertime, without success.

IBEW members demonstrated Thursday morning, and again in the afternoon of that high-teens-temperature day, on a sidewalk in front of a vacant store at the intersection of Washington and Allen Avenues, near the WGME office in Portland. The station is owned by the Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcast Group, known for its tendency to inject partisan politics into its news coverage, such as 2004's decision to force its seven ABC affiliates not to air a dramatic Nightline segment featuring the names and photographs of Americans killed in Iraq.

Sinclair bought the station from the Guy Gannett Company in 1998, an event that Beck refers to as "when the Dark Ages began." Beck and his union members fear they will be handed a contract they will be "forced" to sign, rather than one developed through negotiation.

Negotiations between the IBEW and the station have been stalled since the summer, which was the last time the union met with Sinclair. Beck says the company has refused to respond to the union's demand to prove its claim that WGME's workers are paid more than their counterparts at any of Sinclair's 59 other stations, which are spread across 22 states. Only two or three other stations have unionized labor. There is no scheduled date for negotiations to resume, he says.

The attorney representing Sinclair during the negotiations, Michael Lowenbaum of St. Louis, says the delay is actually the union's fault, for not asking for a meeting. "We'll meet anytime," he says, adding that he would like an agreement "yesterday."

Company officials, from Sinclair CEO David D. Smith to WGME General Manager Alan Cartwright, did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment.

Beck says the union wants a "reasonable" wage increase — but would not be specific about how much — as well as guarantees that the company will continue to contribute to workers' 401(k) retirement plans, will offer health insurance to part-time workers, and agree to retain a contract provision requiring all employees to become members of the union under penalty of dismissal.

"We just felt it was time to let the public know" about what was going on, Beck says. The union has launched a Web site, www.wgmeunfair.com, members are wearing protest buttons to work, and they are planning another action in January, perhaps more specifically targeting advertisers.

"Corporate America's gotten a lot stronger" in recent years, says Paul Desjardins, a maintenance technician who has worked at the station for 30 years, saying that is why he wants to remain part of a union that can represent workers' interests.

Cynthia Phinney, the union's business manager, not a WGME employee, says the negotiations have been "pretty frustrating," because "Sinclair's from away. They don't care about Maine."

The reporters and anchors at WGME — members of another union, who began their own negotiating earlier this year — "share in their [co-workers'] fight," said reporter Doug Ray, that union's shop steward. They cannot demonstrate because of a contract restriction, and Ray says it's not at that stage for his group yet, though "their concerns are our concerns."

And though his union has received no company response to the actions last week, other local unions have offered support to the WGME workers, Beck says.

"We want a contract," he says. "This has really just begun."

No deal? No problem

published in the Portland Phoenix

Brian Hanson, who owns the Industry, an 18-plus Wharf Street nightclub that allowed people to dance and party after the 1 am bar-closing time on Fridays and Saturdays, has shuttered his operation and is spending at least $20,000 to convert the facility to a restaurant. Before he opens the doors of his eatery, which he’s naming Right Proper Charlie's, he expects to need a city permit — an "overlay license," required to run any business in the Old Port that makes more than half its money from alcohol sales.

The Old Port's councilor, Will Gorham, wants to ban all after-hours entertainment in the district. (He had originally wanted to do so city-wide but now has decided to leave alone Platinum Plus, which stays open until 3 am Monday through Thursday, to 4 am on Friday, and to 6 am on Saturday and Sunday.) Gorham is also backing a proposal from the city's attorney, Gary Wood, to reduce the quota of bars allowed overlay licenses from 27 to the 22 that are currently in use, thus blocking the opening of any new bar in the Old Port without another one first closing.

At a recent Public Safety Committee meeting, Hanson's attorney, Richard Berne, told Gorham and the committee that in exchange for cooperating with the city — that is, closing the nightclub, which police say keeps drunk and disorderly people on Wharf Street in the wee hours of weekend mornings — the city should keep open a 23rd overlay license for him.

But Berne also said that if the council doesn't cooperate, Hanson, who holds a liquor license, may open the restaurant anyway, and simply assert that it won't make more than half its money on alcohol. He defended that position by comparing the new operation to Fore Street, which has no overlay license and, Berne publicly speculated, probably makes more than half its money from alcohol sales.

According to Berne, Right Proper Charlie's will be similar to Brian Boru or Gritty McDuff's, which have active bar scenes as well as restaurant menus. Both have overlay licenses.

"You will be eliminating a nightclub and you will have then a restaurant," he said to the committee, which would appear to be good from city officials' point of view. Lieutenant Janine Roberts, head of the Tactical Enforcement Unit, which focuses on the Old Port after dark, talked at length about the dangers underage people were being exposed to because they are drawn to the Industry, which is near several bars.

Gorham, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, expressed his concern about "minors" — many between the ages of 18 and 20 — being "exposed" to people who have been drinking.

Erica Schmitz, coordinator of Portland Communities Mobilizing for Change on Alcohol, and Jan Beitzer, executive director of Portland's Downtown District, both said they wanted fewer bars in the Old Port and supported a city-wide ban on after-hours entertainment.

Nearby bar owners objected to Hanson's proposed deal. Doug Foos, owner of Bull Feeney's and chairman of the city's Night Life Oversight Committee, said he and his group want to keep the number of overlay licenses at 27, but are "vehemently against" giving an overlay license to another bar on Wharf Street.

Tom Manning, owner of Digger's and Liquid Blue, said he was "not opposed" to fewer overlay licenses.

Councilor Donna Carr, a committee member, didn't attend the PSC meeting, and did not return multiple phone calls seeking her comments.

Before she left for another meeting, Councilor Cheryl Leeman, the third committee member, said she supported outlawing after-hours entertainment citywide, grandfathering Platinum Plus, and giving Hanson an overlay license to run his restaurant, saying "for all practical purposes, you have one now."

N.O. peace for Perry's mourners

published in the Portland Phoenix

New Orleans police broke up a memorial service for Portland activist Meg Perry Sunday, by handcuffing and searching Katrina-relief volunteers who were singing songs and reminiscing about the life of the 26-year-old social-justice advocate. Perry, an organizer from Portland’s People's Free Space, was killed, on Saturday, when that group’s familiar green, bio-diesel Frida Bus crashed on a Louisiana highway,

A local memorial service will be held December 17 at 2 pm at the Brunswick United Methodist Church, 320 Church Road. Perry's parents, Robin and Rosalie Perry, then plan "to return to New Orleans and pick up where Megan left off," doing work to "help the displaced, the indigent, to do whatever we can to help people in need," her father said Tuesday.

Perry was in New Orleans with 12 volunteers she had recruited to go to the Gulf Coast, in November, to help with hurricane-relief efforts (see "Frida Deals with Katrina," by Sara Donnelly, November 4) She was thrown from the bus when it rolled on its side on I-10 near the Superdome in an accident whose cause remains under investigation. Eight other people on the bus were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, according to Officer Jonette Williams of the New Orleans Police Department.

After a memorial service attended by hundreds Sunday in a community garden that Perry had helped clear, till, and plant in New Orleans's Eighth Ward, a few close friends stayed behind to sing songs and tell stories about Perry. "They weren't bothering anyone," said Sakura Koné, an organizer of the New Orleans–based relief group Common Ground Collective, for which Perry was volunteering.

A passing police officer noticed the group, Koné said, and called for backup. Some were handcuffed, "others were forced to spread-eagle on the various police vehicles," and the group was being treated "as if they were a threat to the community," Koné said.

Captain Juan Quentin, the commander of the New Orleans police public information office, said he had heard nothing of the memorial service or anything afterward, and suggested that if it had happened, someone should have called the police to complain.

Officer Williams said she did not know of any such event, and Robin Perry, who said he stayed through the memorial service and "later on," also said he had not heard of the incident.

Several People's Free Space activists confirmed that there was an encounter with the police after the memorial service, but declined to give specifics, saying they were conferring with their lawyers.

Nate Brimmer, one of the Maine volunteers in New Orleans, said the group would likely be taking the train back from New Orleans, and declined to comment on whether the volunteers had gotten their bags from the bus, which is in police custody.

The Common Ground Collective planted a fig tree in Perry's memory during the ceremony and has renamed its community-garden creation effort the Meg Perry Community Garden Project. Volunteers also planted nasturtiums, an edible flower, and artichokes, Perry's favorite vegetable, Brimmer said.

The Maine volunteers will return in time for Perry's memorial service Saturday, and most expect to return to the Gulf Coast to continue volunteering.

"We need literally thousands of volunteers," Brimmer said. In some homes that were flooded, there are "three inches of fuzzy mold from the ceiling to the floor" in homes that did not have flood insurance.

The ruin of the Gulf Coast has provided an opportunity to rebuild society in a more just structure, Brimmer said. Perry saw all of society's problems as linked, and at their root "too much competition, not enough co-operation, not enough love, not enough community," he said.

In Portland, a group of about two-dozen People's Free Space members gathered Sunday night for a hastily-called press conference, before which most of the group — many clad in ripped jeans and knit caps or dreadlocks — checked their appearances in a mirror as TV crews got cameras set up.

"They’ll know she’s a badass," said Alexander Aman as he looked at a photo of Perry taken November 13, the day she and 12 others left Maine for the Gulf Coast region.

A statement read by Kate Boverman mourned Perry’s death, saying "she filled her days working for justice" and was "always ready with a warm smile or to lend a hand."

People who want to volunteer with the Common Ground Collective can call 504.218.6613.