Just what we need: another example of people with too much money and not enough sense imposing their vision on the rest of us. Initially a relatively modest and appealing concept, the Roux Institute has somehow erupted into a proposal for an astonishingly huge commercial development wedged into a completely inappropriate space on Portland’s shoreline.
Even assuming that David and Barbara Roux have the best of intentions regarding higher education, their hustling development arm, with the tortured acronym IDEALS ( Initiative for Digital Engineering and Life Sciences) now seeks to foist on the city a glitzy monstrosity that will disrupt not just its neighborhood but the entire metro area. Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Portland would realize, at first glance, that this is a project that does not fit, will not work, and threatens to damage the fabric of the community it purports to enhance.
Equally disturbing was the jarringly aggressive tone of a recent Press Herald editorial (“NIMBYs winning fight over Roux Institute plan” June 9) extolling the almost-imperceptibly “diminished” project while gratuitously trashing neighborhood activists as NIMBYs, short for Not In My Backyarders. Note to Editor: These are not NIMBYs, they are concerned citizens expressing their entirely justified reservations about an assault on the character of our beloved city. And contrary to the editorial’s insulting assertions, they are seeking to preserve it for — not deny it to — future Portland residents.
Whose call was that? Where are former Editorial Page Editor George Neavoll and columnist Bill Nemitz when we need them?
I hope the Rouxs wake up, and IDEALS and Press Herald wise up. They are heading down a very wrong path. This ill-conceived project needs to be rethought from the ground up.
Mike Roland
Bowdoinham
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