Words from Joe on 42 Atlantic St.

The purpose of the board is:

Applying review standards in a reasonable and flexible manner to prevent the unnecessary loss of the community's historical features and to ensure compatible new construction and rehabilitation in historic districts while not stifling change and development or forcing modern recreations of historic styles.

“You are also supposed to protect and enhance neighborhood character, as well as protect and enhance the attractiveness of the city to home buyers, home owners, residents, tourists, visitors, businesses, and shoppers.

This proposed development as currently designed utterly fails. It is not visually compatible with the structures to which it is visually related. It does not protect or enhance the neighborhood character. It does not protect or enhance the attractiveness of the city.

It does the opposite of these things. It is a giant box, now imagined with a wallpaper treatment meant to substitute for architectural articulation or interest. It is twice as big or more as anything else in view. It is flat and ugly and utterly lacking in the charm and grace that makes Atlantic, Gilbert, and Wilson streets so pleasant in that area.

This board’s Portland Historic Resources Design Manual states on page 152: “A new building in a historic district . . . need not follow the pattern set by its neighbors in each and every area of compatibility. It should, however, relate to a number of them.”

My position is that this proposal doesn’t relate to any of them: scale, form, façade, relationship to the street. The proposed building is not visually related to its neighbors.

It is not just visually incompatible: at 72’ x 85’ x 40’ high, this proposed structure not only won’t complement the historic streetscape, but it will also dominate it to the point of parody. If built as currently proposed, this structure will become the defining structural element for the street. It will be both unwelcome and unavoidable. As someone mentioned at the initial neighborhood meeting, this is the sort of building that will leave visitors and residents in the future wondering how on earth this thing got built and who gave it the go-ahead.

This board was both brave and spot-on in defense of 142 Free Street. It refused to take part in the taking apart of a historic designation. Please be brave again. Don’t sacrifice this lovely street in this lovely historic district to development pressures. Don’t be the people who allowed this thing to be built.

55 Atlantic Street is an important part of this conversation. It is kitty-corner across from the proposed development, at the intersection of Wilson Street. This building is not even half the size of the proposed development but is still an excellent example of how to do massing well.

Through the use of high-quality materials (bricks, granite lintels, a dramatic wood cornice) this relatively large mass works well. It is beautiful.

The Wilson Street side of 55 Atlantic runs about 72’, nearly twice as long as the 44’ Atlantic front. The high-quality materials persist along this long run. This emphasis on quality is married to a human scale façade, featuring a fully decorated large porch, and bay windows.

Contrast this existing building to the proposed new neighbor, which is flat on all sides, using relatively low-quality materials in a wallpaper treatment to cover a total lack of architectural elements or building articulation.

The proposed design of 42 Atlantic is an insult to 55 Atlantic.

Some notes about the presentation (slide show). Some of the renderings seem “off” somehow and I am hoping that the developer will explain how they were created.”

Joe Lewis, 33 Atlantic Street