New Congress Street apartments to be unveiled
Renovations on old USM dorms due to be done this week
Developer Greg Shinberg sat in a box bay window and gestured to Congress Street, five floors below.
"If you watch here for a little while, you will see that this is probably about the most heavily walked part of the city of Portland. There is always pedestrian traffic out here," he said.
This Wednesday, Shinberg, developer of Portland's newest urban apartments, hopes to pull down part of the streetside scaffolding and give the world a look at the city's most recent residential upgrade: The six-story, 56-unit apartment complex at 645 Congress St., the latest incarnation of a location that began as a boarding house and is mostly remembered now as a dorm for University of Southern Maine students.
The building has been covered in scaffolding most of the winter, but by Sunday Shinberg hopes to introduce tenants to their new lodgings, located just west of the State Theater.
"We haven't been able to really show it that much because it's been under construction," Shinberg said. "We're right on track with where we wanted to be. We hoped to have about 15 rented when we opened, and we're not far from that."
As of Monday, Shinberg said he had 12 out of the 56 apartments rented. The goal is to gain an occupancy permit from the city Thursday and bring in tenants as early as Sunday.
About half of the tarp-covered scaffolding will come down Wednesday, revealing a new facade on the eastern half of the building's Congress Street entrance, Shinberg said.
The former college complex dates back more than a century to its first life as a rooming house, according to the city's planning department. A five-story building facing Congress Street was built circa 1893, and a six-story building to the west dates to 1899, according to the planning department. Those buildings have been renovated into the 56 apartments.
"I think it's geared to those people who want to have that urban, downtown feel, and we're getting a lot of local people who have lived in Maine a long time and like this Deering neighborhood and want to be right here in the Congress Street area," Shinberg said Monday while touring the building. "I think it appeals to them because it's very vibrant. If you want to be in an urban setting and be in Maine, this is about as urban as you get."
A tour of one of the finished floors offered glimpses of a studio apartment, where a bay window featured a bird's-eye view of Congress Street — Port City Blue, Mesa Verde restaurant, the Lafayette Hotel.
The back side apartments on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors boasted views of the mountains and Deering Street.
"We tried to make them usable, simple," Shinberg said of the 19 studios and 37 one-bedroom units, which range in rent from $675-$1,200 a month with parking, or $75 less without parking.
Each tenant should have room for two bicycles
About 50,000 square feet of usable building space ended up being converted into these new apartments.
Some units were recycled; one had a king-sized bathroom similar to what was in the old dorms. Several apartments featured the original pine floors.
"Some of these walls are the old, original plaster walls and they've been repaired," Shinberg noted.
Shinberg and partner Justin Alfond qualified for the Efficiency Maine program, which helped pay for electrical and heating systems.
The real estate market hasn't changed much in the time that the partners conceived of, and undertook, the renovations, Shinberg said.
"We conceived it a year and a half ago and it really wasn't that different. We tried to have fairly affordable (apartments). Many of the units are in the $800 to $900 range and they include heat and hot water and they're nice, big one-bedrooms," he said.
The rooms are varied.
"Out of 56 apartments, there's probably 40 different types, they're all over the place," Shinberg said.
Ben Cookman, a foreman who oversaw interior renovations, said, "To really appreciate it, you have to have seen it since we started. It was pretty rough. It looked like there had been a bunch of college kids here for 20 years."
Shinberg agreed that the renovations made some dramatic improvements.
"We had four bunkbeds here, two there, some were two-bedroom, three-bedroom, we turned them all into one-bedrooms and efficiencies," he said.
"We really didn't start renovations until July and here we are, Feb. 1 we're going to be open," he said, sounding amazed at the rapid progress.
"This is one of the more complex projects I've done in this area," Shinberg said. "This is an old building, it has challenges, fortunately the city worked well with us."
Noting the original building's classic look, he said the renovations added "all new life safety systems, completely sprinkled, all new electrical."
Stylistically, the facade should impress when fully exposed, he said.
"It pays homage to the old look, and it has a modern flair to it with the zinc-coated copper on the bays, and we've had a lot of positive comments from neighbors who like the exterior," Shinberg said.
The entranceway will lead not only to the apartments but also to three large retail spaces. Local Sprouts Cooperative has leased one of three retail spaces and plans to open this spring, tentatively May or June, Shinberg said.
About 80 contractors have been on site, working nights and weekends to prepare for the opening. A formal grand opening is planned on Feb. 22.
In back, crews dismantled three buildings, built on stilts, an adjunct to the old University of Southern Maine housing complex, known as Portland Hall. The A Wing, B Wing and Yankee Clipper Wing — including an old Best Western motel — could not be salvaged economically, Shinberg explained. The developers invested in excess of $4 million in the purchase and renovations, Shinberg has estimated.
Shinberg said he is pleased with the response not only to the Congress Street apartments but also to a condominium development on 135 Sheridan St. on Munjoy Hill.
"We have had five closings in the last couple of months up there," he said.
But the Congress Street project has consumed him for the past year, and he admitted to looking forward to a break.
"I'm looking for a little rest right now, take a month or so and kind of kick back," he said.
