Portland to unveil finalist designs for $100K Martin Luther King memorial
Courtesy / City of Portland
The site of Portland's planned Martin Luther King Jr. memorial will be a public plaza, circled, on the Bayside Trail, between Marginal Way and Franklin and Somerset streets.
Three designers being considered by the city of Portland to plan a public memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. will unveil their proposals tomorrow.
In August, the Portland City Council’s MLK Memorial Selection Committee chose three finalists from a request-for-qualifications process that drew nine candidates. The finalists are Robert Katz, an artist in Augusta; TJD&A Landscape Architects, of Yarmouth; and Ironwood Design Group, of Newmarket, N.H.
The designers each received $2,500 from the city to help develop their proposals, which include written project statements, visuals, models, schedules and budgets. Conceptual outlines have already been reviewed, but the finalists must now make 20-minute presentations of their complete proposals and respond to questions from the committee. The presentations are scheduled for Thursday at 5:30 p.m., at Portland City Hall, 389 Congress St.
The winning designer is expected to be announced on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 20, 2020. The city has allocated $100,000 for the creation of the memorial.
“I look forward to seeing and reviewing the fully developed proposals from the finalists, and I hope that many members of our community will attend the meeting on the 14th in order to learn more about the vision of each of these proposals,” said Portland City Councilor Jill Duson, co-chair of the committee, in a news release.
Portland began exploring the idea of a King memorial in 2008, when a city council task force recommended a site along the Bayside Trail. A 17-member commission was formed to come up with a design, and issued an RFP that received four bids.
But the project, which would have cost “on the order of $750,000” according to the commission, stalled. Eventually, the city relooked at the possibility of a King memorial and the RFQ was issued in May.
Cities worldwide have created monuments and public spaces to the civil rights leader since he was assassinated April 4, 1968. One of the most well-known memorials was built in 2011 in Washington, D.C., at a cost of $120 million. The University of Maine opened Martin Luther King Plaza near its student union in 2008, displaying 10 quotations by King.
King never visited Portland, but he spoke in Brunswick and Biddeford in early May 1964, eight months after his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
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