Cumberland County recently purchased this office building on Northport Drive in Portland for $4.6 million and plans to do $3 million to $4 million in interior renovations before consolidating county offices there in 2024. The unified county building project is being funded by federal pandemic recovery funds. Photo courtesy The Boulos Co.
Cumberland County government offices will move from the cramped and aging courthouse on Newbury Street in downtown Portland to a modern office building off outer Washington Avenue under a plan that will cost more than $8 million in federal pandemic recovery funds.
The new unified county office building will provide expansive office and parking space for the Registry of Deeds in particular, and it will allow the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office to move upstairs from its crowded quarters in the basement of the 1910 courthouse.
The county purchased the three-story office building at 27 Northport Drive from Martin’s Point Health Care Inc. on Oct. 26 for $4.6 million, The Boulos Co. announced Tuesday. Cumberland County Commissioners approved the purchase 5-0 in September. The asking price for the building constructed in 1987 was $4.9 million.
Funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, the project calls for an additional $3 million to $4 million in interior renovations to the Northport Drive building before county offices can be consolidated there as soon as 2024, said county spokesman Travis Kennedy.
County officials have been looking for a way to reduce crowding in the courthouse for decades, but the timing was never right and the most recent $17 million estimate to construct a 25,000-square-foot building from scratch was prohibitive, Kennedy said. They learned the former Martin’s Point building was for sale in August.
“This building was a gift from the sky,” Kennedy said Tuesday. “We’ve been working on this for at least 20 years. We have people in the courthouse who work in offices that were built under staircases. A lot of our staff isn’t used to seeing daylight at work. Now, we can finally do something about it.”
County officials are working their way through more than $17 million in projects, including upgrades to the courthouse, jail and downtown civic arena, as part the county’s share of its $57.3 million federal pandemic aid allocation. The rest has been distributed to municipalities, agencies and other entities that sought competitive grants for a wide variety of proposals, including affordable housing, child care, substance use treatment and public health.
The 32,532-square-foot office building, located near the intersection of Washington and Allen avenues, will house the Registry of Deeds and regional assessing, now in leased space on Pearl Street, as well as the new Cumberland County Public Health Department, now in leased space on Milk Street. It also will house county executive, administrative and emergency management offices, Kennedy said.
“The property has been well kept and many floors have existing furniture that will be transferred as part of the sale,” County Manager Jim Gailey wrote in a memo to the commissioners. “The building provides space for the county offices, plus more. Spaces exist for a number of conference rooms, a cafeteria, exercise room and more. This building serves the county today and will for years to come.”
Remaining in the courthouse will be the superior, district and probate courts, as well as DA’s offices. Renovations to accommodate office changes within the courthouse are expected to be minimal, but the moves will be meaningful in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy said.
“The pandemic over the last two years has shown that the county’s current office setup is not safe and is susceptible to significant impacts,” Gailey said in the memo. “There were a number of times entire offices were being impacted by COVID exposure, and with having upwards of four to five staff in a small office, those impacts were felt. Better ventilation and greater space between employee work areas is a desired outcome.”
The commissioners voted 3-0 last week to hire WSP USA, one of five architecture firms that applied to design and renovate the office building. WSP recently designed a full renovation of the Ray Building in Augusta that houses the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, as well as projects for the Maine Army National Guard in Saco and the Maine Cultural Building in Augusta.
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