This Week's Column – By Ward Peck
A missed opportunity
For many people, the University of New England’s “news” that it would establish a new pharmacy school was not news at all. The real news was where that school might be located. There was hope and a great deal of concerted effort to convince the university’s administration to locate the school in one of downtown Biddeford’s underused mill buildings. Those administrators at least pretended to consider the option: reviewing proposals, attending presentations and allowing themselves to be entertained and lobbied by the city’s downtown boosters. How much of an effect on UNE’s plans all of this effort had, I do not know, but I suspect not very much.
Perhaps they were being an indulgent neighbor, massaging the city’s ego by pretending there was even chance the decision could break in Biddeford’s favor. Perhaps they felt they could get a better deal from Portland if they created the perception that the Westbrook College campus on Portland’s Stevens Avenue was only one of several possible locations for the new school.
Some people may be shocked at the suggestion that UNE used Biddeford to get a better deal. I would not be one of them. There is a sense that UNE sees itself as something apart and superior to the city of Biddeford; that it is a community apart and location within the city’s borders is an accident of geography that is best ignored.
Ever since I started working at Mainely Newspapers, first for the Courier and now for the South Portland Sentry and the Leader, I have been enamored with downtown Biddeford.
A walk down either side of Main Street with head tilted up reveals every block has at least one building of architectural significance. Taken as a whole, as Main Street curves gracefully over the distance of about a mile from Alfred Street to Elm Street, presents a unified whole. The side streets that spoke out to the south lead to the values of our past: granite cathedrals honoring God or civic life or the power of organized labor.
“They don’t make them like they used to,” that saying goes for downtowns as much as the buildings themselves. But as that gaze directed at the parapets, gables and reliefs on those buildings’ upper floors moves down toward street level, the problem becomes apparent. These buildings may be beautiful, but their potential remains unfulfilled. The buildings have great bones, but without the blood and flesh of human activity, they are nothing but relics.
There are people in downtown Biddeford who see the same thing I do. The difference between them and me is that they are willing to put their money where my mouth is. They don’t see downtowns as places whose time has past, but whose renaissance is sure to come. They are making these bets with real money and if that renaissance happens, those bets will pay off big.
In the short time I have been here, downtown Biddeford has felt as if it was on the verge of something exciting: change seems imminent. The problem is it remains perpetually on the verge. Businesses pop up portending a new dynamic, only to quickly succumb to the lack of foot traffic on the streets. Rumors of huge deals promising to transform the downtown mills reach fever pitch, then fizzle. New building owners find their good intentions do not make the best business plans.
The “news” that the pharmacy school will be in Portland demonstrates those making the strategic decisions at the school only see what downtown Biddeford is, not what it could be and they see it is as some place to avoid.
I remember speaking to the university’s vice president for University Relations, Ed Legg, about a bond referendum that would fund a new fire station in Biddeford Pool. The conversation moved on to several other city/school issues, including a $50,000 payment UNE makes to the city annually. As a non-profit, the school does not pay property tax on its large real estate holding. Many non-profits recognize that, while they are not required to pay such taxes, they benefit from the services their host community provides (paved roads, police and fire protection, etc.). This recognition is common enough that there is a mechanism used to satisfy this responsibility known as a “Payment in Lieu of Taxes,” or PILOT.
When I asked Legg about UNE’s $50,000 PILOT, he took issue with the phrase. He informed me that UNE does not consider the payment a PILOT. I asked about the fact that a Biddeford police officer often was stationed at the campus security building. Again, Legg preferred to see the benefit of this arrangement as an act of generosity on the part of the school by providing the officer with shelter from the cold, rain and wind.
It is by seeing the relationship between the city and school through this prism that I believe UNE suffered a major failure of imagination when it comes to the pharmacy school. I believe the school’s administrators and trustees could not help but see the proposal to build the school in downtown Biddeford as a request for a handout rather than a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Downtown Biddeford is a five-minute drive from the Turnpike and a five-minute walk from the Saco Amtrak station. From my home in the West End of Portland, I can get to my office on Main Street in 20 minutes. It would probably take me about the same amount of time to get to the Stevens Avenue campus from my house, given the snarled traffic. Such a school occupying, say the Lincoln Mill building, would be a landmark; a prominent anchor in a resurging city emblematic of good design and smart growth. Rather than choosing sustainable redevelopment in a traditional service center and transportation hub, it chose to house the new school where it is sure to be overlooked: just another academic building on an out of the way campus, choked by the consequences of bad design and urban sprawl.
Downtown Biddeford offers restaurants, shops and housing all within walking distance from the mill buildings. The Westbrook campus? None of the above.
It would not have been easy, nor cheap, to rehabilitate one of the mill buildings to the standards required by a pharmacology school, but had there been a will, there would have been many people eager to find a way. Its too bad UNE just couldn’t get over itself enough to see it.
This weekend, Kari and I will be married in Biddeford and after the ceremony we’ll be partying at the Wonderbar. We’re doing our small part by choosing Biddeford, not out of charity but because we’re both genuinely fond of Biddeford. Downtown Biddeford is beautiful as it is and once you recognize that, you can imagine what it could be.
For many people, the University of New England’s “news” that it would establish a new pharmacy school was not news at all. The real news was where that school might be located. There was hope and a great deal of concerted effort to convince the university’s administration to locate the school in one of downtown Biddeford’s underused mill buildings. Those administrators at least pretended to consider the option: reviewing proposals, attending presentations and allowing themselves to be entertained and lobbied by the city’s downtown boosters. How much of an effect on UNE’s plans all of this effort had, I do not know, but I suspect not very much.
Perhaps they were being an indulgent neighbor, massaging the city’s ego by pretending there was even chance the decision could break in Biddeford’s favor. Perhaps they felt they could get a better deal from Portland if they created the perception that the Westbrook College campus on Portland’s Stevens Avenue was only one of several possible locations for the new school.
Some people may be shocked at the suggestion that UNE used Biddeford to get a better deal. I would not be one of them. There is a sense that UNE sees itself as something apart and superior to the city of Biddeford; that it is a community apart and location within the city’s borders is an accident of geography that is best ignored.
Ever since I started working at Mainely Newspapers, first for the Courier and now for the South Portland Sentry and the Leader, I have been enamored with downtown Biddeford.
A walk down either side of Main Street with head tilted up reveals every block has at least one building of architectural significance. Taken as a whole, as Main Street curves gracefully over the distance of about a mile from Alfred Street to Elm Street, presents a unified whole. The side streets that spoke out to the south lead to the values of our past: granite cathedrals honoring God or civic life or the power of organized labor.
“They don’t make them like they used to,” that saying goes for downtowns as much as the buildings themselves. But as that gaze directed at the parapets, gables and reliefs on those buildings’ upper floors moves down toward street level, the problem becomes apparent. These buildings may be beautiful, but their potential remains unfulfilled. The buildings have great bones, but without the blood and flesh of human activity, they are nothing but relics.
There are people in downtown Biddeford who see the same thing I do. The difference between them and me is that they are willing to put their money where my mouth is. They don’t see downtowns as places whose time has past, but whose renaissance is sure to come. They are making these bets with real money and if that renaissance happens, those bets will pay off big.
In the short time I have been here, downtown Biddeford has felt as if it was on the verge of something exciting: change seems imminent. The problem is it remains perpetually on the verge. Businesses pop up portending a new dynamic, only to quickly succumb to the lack of foot traffic on the streets. Rumors of huge deals promising to transform the downtown mills reach fever pitch, then fizzle. New building owners find their good intentions do not make the best business plans.
The “news” that the pharmacy school will be in Portland demonstrates those making the strategic decisions at the school only see what downtown Biddeford is, not what it could be and they see it is as some place to avoid.
I remember speaking to the university’s vice president for University Relations, Ed Legg, about a bond referendum that would fund a new fire station in Biddeford Pool. The conversation moved on to several other city/school issues, including a $50,000 payment UNE makes to the city annually. As a non-profit, the school does not pay property tax on its large real estate holding. Many non-profits recognize that, while they are not required to pay such taxes, they benefit from the services their host community provides (paved roads, police and fire protection, etc.). This recognition is common enough that there is a mechanism used to satisfy this responsibility known as a “Payment in Lieu of Taxes,” or PILOT.
When I asked Legg about UNE’s $50,000 PILOT, he took issue with the phrase. He informed me that UNE does not consider the payment a PILOT. I asked about the fact that a Biddeford police officer often was stationed at the campus security building. Again, Legg preferred to see the benefit of this arrangement as an act of generosity on the part of the school by providing the officer with shelter from the cold, rain and wind.
It is by seeing the relationship between the city and school through this prism that I believe UNE suffered a major failure of imagination when it comes to the pharmacy school. I believe the school’s administrators and trustees could not help but see the proposal to build the school in downtown Biddeford as a request for a handout rather than a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Downtown Biddeford is a five-minute drive from the Turnpike and a five-minute walk from the Saco Amtrak station. From my home in the West End of Portland, I can get to my office on Main Street in 20 minutes. It would probably take me about the same amount of time to get to the Stevens Avenue campus from my house, given the snarled traffic. Such a school occupying, say the Lincoln Mill building, would be a landmark; a prominent anchor in a resurging city emblematic of good design and smart growth. Rather than choosing sustainable redevelopment in a traditional service center and transportation hub, it chose to house the new school where it is sure to be overlooked: just another academic building on an out of the way campus, choked by the consequences of bad design and urban sprawl.
Downtown Biddeford offers restaurants, shops and housing all within walking distance from the mill buildings. The Westbrook campus? None of the above.
It would not have been easy, nor cheap, to rehabilitate one of the mill buildings to the standards required by a pharmacology school, but had there been a will, there would have been many people eager to find a way. Its too bad UNE just couldn’t get over itself enough to see it.
This weekend, Kari and I will be married in Biddeford and after the ceremony we’ll be partying at the Wonderbar. We’re doing our small part by choosing Biddeford, not out of charity but because we’re both genuinely fond of Biddeford. Downtown Biddeford is beautiful as it is and once you recognize that, you can imagine what it could be.
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