A tale of two cities: Portland, Providence

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to visit Providence’s smaller neighbor to the north – Portland, Maine (population 66,000), where I have witnessed the slow, steady transformation of this seaside city from a tired, marine port town into a thriving visitor destination.

During the 1990s, Providence (population 178,000) also underwent a spectacular renaissance. During that decade national magazines touted our successes – Providence Place mall, new hotels, WaterFire, an expanded arts district, nationally televised events and a prime-time NBC show.

Added to these successes was a bold, new plan called “Three Cities” that offered the promise of transforming our archaic, industrial inner-city (i.e., Allens Avenue) waterfront into a generator of jobs and tax revenue. Sadly, for Providence, that 1990s tempo of development and our feeling of self-esteem for a “city regained” has been not only lost but squandered.

Let us look at the numbers and compare the current situation in Portland versus Providence. To quote from the novel of Charles Dickens, it is “A Tale of Two Cities.” Today in Providence the current Class A office space vacancy rate stands at over 10 percent, with Class C space 28 percent empty. By contrast, Portland’s Class A vacancy rate is 4.5 percent, and along the commercial spine of that city – Commercial, Fore and Exchange streets – the vacancy rate is 0 percent. Portland’s overall vacancy rate for retail properties now stands at an impressive 3.6 percent – and most vacancies are quickly filled.

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While Portland real estate officials characterize 2015 as a “frenzied year of transactions in industrial, retail and office space,” Providence struggles to find a new use for the multistory, abandoned hulk mistakenly referred to as the Superman Building.

To be fair, one could point to the proposed uses planned for the recently vacated I-195 land and the transformation of the former South Street power plant into a nursing school as positive developments. Yet these projects come at a cost. Once the infusion of construction jobs fades, these properties, owned predominantly by nonprofit educational institutions, will occupy valuable real estate largely untaxed.

By contrast, a $250 million development being proposed along Portland’s eastern waterfront will increase property tax revenue on that 10-acre site tenfold.

Which brings me to my final point. Portland, unlike Providence, has done a marvelous job in developing its waterfront, while simultaneously respecting the important role that its working waterfront plays in sustaining the local economy.

The centerpiece of this revitalized waterfront is a cruise ship terminal and a new $6 million “mega-berth.” The effect of increased cruise ship visits to Portland has been dramatic.

Last year 83 cruise ships visited this city, and this year ships such as the 6,000-passenger Anthem of the Seas will dock within a stone’s throw of the retail district. More than 113,000 cruise ship passengers will walk along Portland’s retail district this year and a local city agency – Cruise Portland – is working to position that city as an embarkation point for the cruise ship industry. This development is sure to bring additional business to hotels, the airport, historical sites and many other businesses that cater to the swelling ranks of leisure visitors.

In Providence, I invested $1.5 million in 2006 to construct a pier off Allens Avenue to accommodate small, coastal cruise ships. Shortly after it was completed, ships from American Cruise Lines began to visit Providence on a regular basis at the rate of 28 per summer.

A second phase of my plan included the construction of a large “T” at the end of Dock Conley to allow larger ships to berth there. Vehement opposition from a small, self-interested group, partly funded by an out-of-state oil company and a strip-club operator, acting in concert with a former City Council president, killed a zoning change that would have allowed mixed-use development in that area and an expansion of our nascent cruise-ship business. It would have also banned scrap yards. The dock now sits idle, a silent testimony to failed vision blinded by the pernicious game of insider politics. The promise of Providence becoming a cruise ship destination (like Portland) has been scrapped. •

Patrick T. Conley is a Rhode Island real estate developer.

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