Is anyone really surprised that the Olympia Company will not be developing the Maine State Pier? After nearly one year of discussions the City Council’s Community Development Committee recommended last week that Portland terminate negotiations.
The major issue appears to be the ownership of the sea floor beneath the Maine State Pier. Olympia all along has said that a 75 year lease was required to make the project viable, but the state, who claims to control the land, will only grant a 30 year lease.
This project has been mishandled from the very beginning and it is a shame that something so important to the long term business and economic interests of Portland cannot be focused without the influence of partisan politics. According to City Councilor Cheryl Leeman, there are several options at the point: a) Seek new proposals for the project; b) go back to Ocean Properties – who initially lost the bidding process to Olympia in 2007; c) it can sign the master development agreement with Olympia, with no work to be done until the title is resolved.
Of course, the city might do nothing at all.
How did it come to this? Who really believed that the state would relinquish it’s rights over the sea floor, even though the city claimed it had title to the land and subsequently obtained title insurance? How could the state not be more supportive of such an important projects – or was this simply the results of politics?
If the state of Maine and the city of Portland cannot get their act together to make a project of this magnitude happen, how can we expect to really be a player on a regional stage – let alone a national one?
Posted by: Michael Sosnowski
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