A Portland-based pizza restaurant will be one of the first tenants of the newly remodeled Warren Furniture building on Main Street.
Portland Pie Co., which has restaurants in Portland and South Portland, has signed a lease to occupy a space in the building, which has been renamed the Edwards Block.
Portland Pie Co. will be joined in the building by Business Interiors, a Vermont-based company that helps businesses create efficient work environments. This will be the first Maine location for Business Interiors, which has showrooms in Brattleboro, Rutland and Williston, Vt., as well as a location in Sunapee, N.H.
Dave Tucci, vice president of Portland Pie Co., said the company had been looking for a new location for about six months to a year, and found that Westbrook was a good fit for the company.
“Westbrook’s up and coming,” Tucci said. “It picks up where our existing delivery areas leave off.”
The building is still under construction, and Katherine Allen, a broker with NAI The Dunham Group, which is handling the leases, said she expects the restaurant to open some time in July.
Once the space is done, Tucci said the 3,000-square-foot space would have a small lounge serving beer and wine and a restaurant seating about 50 people. Tucci said the company is considering featuring live music in the lounge on some nights.
“We’re going to create an atmosphere where people can come in and have some pizza and a beer and listen to some cool music,” he said.
Tucci said the company started as delivery-orientated, with about 80 percent of its business coming from delivery. In the past year, Tucci said Portland Pie Co. has started to change, opening a lounge serving beer and wine at its Portland location and is looking to supplement its delivery business with a sit-down restaurant.
“The company’s definitely evolved over the last 12 to 16 months,” he said.
While the Westbrook restaurant will be the newest in the chain, Tucci said he hopes it will serve as a model as the company continues to grow. “We feel this Westbrook location is going to be our flagship location as far as the direction of the company,” he said.
Jim Baker, principal of Business Interiors, said his company is in the process of acquiring the assets of a Portland-based company. “Our move to Westbrook is a reflection of that purchase and of our commitment to the Maine marketplace,” Baker said. “We’re certainly looking forward to being in Westbrook in the near future.”
Baker said the Westbrook location would have an office and a showroom, as well as a resource center for clients looking for help designing their office space.
While Portland Pie Co. and Business Interiors are the only two companies to sign a lease in the building, Allen said she feels there is a lot of interest in the building, and is talking to other firms about leasing space. She declined to name any other companies interested in leasing space in the building.
Allen said once work on the Edwards Block is finished, she thought it would attract a good mix of businesses downtown. “It’s going to be a really nice building,” she said. “It’s definitely going to increase the walking traffic in that area.”
Tucci said he is eager to open in Westbrook. “We’re pretty fired up,” he said. “It’s going to be a great location.”
Portland Pie Co. and Vermont-based Business Interiors are the first companies to sign leases for space in the former Warren Furniture building, which has been renamed the Edwards Block.Send questions/comments to the editors.
