File Photo / Tim Greenway
Curtis Picard
Updated: July 11, 2025
News Analysis
Dollar store or bust? Renys Portland store hits the market, fueling speculation about next occupant
Photo / Renee Cordes
Would a dollar store make cents at 540 Congress St. in Portland? The space currently occupied by Renys has been listed for sale or lease by the Boulos Co.
With Renys' 24,800-square-foot Portland store just listed on the market for sale or lease, industry insiders are already speculating on who the next occupant may be at 540 Congress St.
"A dollar store is a likely candidate," said Thomas Moulton, a partner and broker with the Dunham Group in Portland.
That's the generic term for hard-discount chains led by Dollar General Corp. (NYSE: DG), Dollar Tree Inc. (NASDAQ: DLTR) and Dollar Tree-owned Family Dollar, all of which have a presence in Maine.
Renys, a family-owned discount retailer based in Newcastle, has been In Portland for more than a dozen years. The same spot once housed an L.L.Bean, an F.W. Woolworth with a soda fountain where ladies once gathered in their finest for cream sodas and milk shakes, and a Day's Jewelers with oodles of display cases.
Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the Retail Association of Maine, told Mainebiz that while the property has always housed a retail business, "that doesn't mean it can't function as something else down the road."
However, "it's going to take some creative thinking for someone to come in and utilize that space in a way they think will work," he said in a Thursday phone interview.
Broker 'confident'
Located near the Maine College of Art and Design, Renys has long been an anchor business and employer in the neighborhood, selling clothing, household goods and non-perishable food items.
Blaming financial headwinds since the pandemic, Renys recently announced plans to close the store by year's end. A spokesperson for Renys declined to comment on the real estate listing.
The move comes amid widespread concerns about downtown safety and cleanliness along the Congress Street corridor, which has several vacant storefronts as well as some new businesses.
The property is being marketed by the Boulos Co., a Portland-based real estate agency in two separate listings. They give a lease rate of $9.50 per square foot and a sales price of $4.295 million. Besides the ground-floor retail area, the property includes 1,800 square feet of warehouse space and 1,200 square feet of offices.
"We are very confident we will fill the space," Fraser Cameron, a broker with Boulos, told Mainebiz. He said that the owner does not have a preference regarding a sale versus lease.
Asked who the space might be best suited for, he said, "I think it caters to many uses" for an occupant seeking a "great centralized downtown location near amenities and rooftops" and benefit from a large frontage and climate-controlled space with loading an unloading capabilities.
He declined to disclose the property owner.
As Renys closes the chapter on its downtown Portland adventure, it has been on an expansion drive in central Maine with a new store in Waterville and a planned new location in Augusta.
Picard, of the Retail Association of Maine, is not ruling out a future Renys elsewhere in Maine's largest city.
"My understanding is they're not saying 'no' to Portland forever, they're just saying 'no' to this location," he said.
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