Local:
Portland Urban Forest Master Plan Advisory Group: GPL has joined a new advisory group to study and create a strategic plan for Portland’s urban forest. Historically, Portland has been known as “Forest City” and we want to make sure that our heritage of trees, and heritage trees themselves, are protected as the city continues to evolve. This project is spearheaded by Portland Parks Conservancy in partnership with the City of Portland. You can participate by attending the first Public Workshop on September 17th (5-7pm at Merrill Auditorium Rehearsal Hall), inviting the consultant team to a neighborhood meeting (email treemanagement@portlandmaine.gov), completing the community survey, and by learning more. We’ll keep you up to date in The Column!
Hearts of Pine: Portland’s own Hearts of Pine professional soccer club announced plans to build a new stadium at Cassidy Point along Portland’s working waterfront. We are huge supporters of the team here at GPL, even flying the Hearts of Pine flag at the Observatory on game days! This proposal will go through a series of reviews before it can move forward, and as the community considers the needs of the team, the city, and residents, we will be gathering more information on a number of considerations:
The working waterfront is iconic to Portland and has historically been carefully protected. We’re eager to understand how a stadium would impact Cassidy Point’s important function as a deep-water port.
We are advocating for the rehabilitation and continued use of the historic Portland Expo, which is part of the sports complex that includes Fitpatrick Stadium, the current home of Hearts of Pine. There is a lot of opportunity to redesign the complex to serve all of the teams and fans that use the complex.
There have been conversations about moving the train station from the Transportation Center back to the peninsula. The location of the stadium could impact those considerations.
GPL will engage with the process to review this proposal and keep you up date as we learn more.
55 St Lawrence Street Proposal, Delano Architects
55 St. Lawrence: The Historic Preservation Board recently reviewed an application for new residential construction at 55/57 St. Lawrence Street in the Munjoy Hill Historic District. The 4-story condo building would include 7 units with private garage parking, a roof deck, and a green roof. GPL provided feedback at the July 1st workshop, and invited the architects to meet with staff for further discussion. The team at Delano Architecture sat down with us and reviewed the revisions they made to the design based on feedback from the Board meeting. We appreciate the opportunity to discuss the project with the team and feel that the changes they have made are positive. We appreciate the opportunity to discuss the project with the team and provide input to help their proposal successfully relate to the character of the Munjoy Hill Historic District. *The rendering reflects an earlier version of the project included in the application to the Historic Preservation Board.
State:
Grant Opportunity: The Maine Historic Preservation Commission has announced Round 2 of the Historic Community Buildings Grant Program. Applications are due October 23, 2026 and decisions will be announced at the end of January 2027. This grant program is funded by a $10 million bond that Maine voters approved in November 2024 with the anticipation of three grant rounds. More information can be found at the MHPC website, at a virtual Grant Workshop on August 10th at noon, or at an in-person event on August 14th at 10:00 am in Hallowell.
National:
Section 106: While most of the day-to-day preservation work that you see in your neighborhoods is governed by zoning and ordinances at the local level, there is a process for reviewing federal projects as well. This process, called Section 106, was enacted as part of the National Historic Preservation Act sixty years ago and has protected countless historic resources across the country. When federal licensing, permits, or funding are involved in a project, there is a mandatory review and stakeholder engagement process to identify and assess impacts to historic resources. In a handful of cases, the project is redesigned to avoid destroying things like historic cemeteries and archeological sites that were discovered in this process, places with Indigenous history and significance, historic buildings, viewsheds, and landscapes, and many other places that capture American and Indigenous stories.
In a catastrophic move by the Trump administration, the regulations for Section 106 have been revised and, if approved, would virtually eliminate this critical process. Review would become voluntary, the definition of what is considered “historic” would become extremely limited, and communication with stakeholders, like the impacted communities, would be at the discretion of the federal government.
In short, Section 106 protects historic places and without it, we’ll lose them.
The official comment period has not yet opened, but there’s action to be taken now:
Learn more at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, Preservation Action, the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, and most news sources such as the Washington Post, CNN, and NPR.
Write to the governor, who needs to hear from thousands of Mainers on this issue. The National Trust has an easy form you can use. It will provide language that you can use or customize.
Write to your elected officials: there’s a form to help with this, too.
Stay tuned. We’ll let you know when the official comment period has opened. When this goes to court, preservation lawyers cite letters submitted during that comment window.
