Photo / Courtesy Reincorp
Two new apartment buildings are underway at 10 and 12 School St. in Sanford.
Updated: June 2, 2025
Building Business
Rising costs and buyer hesitancy stall Portland housing projects
Photo / Tina Fischer
A five-story mixed use building planned for 185 Commercial St. in Portland has been put on hold.
Two high-end condominium developments and a 327-unit apartment complex targeted to middle-income households are all now on hold. All were fully approved.
A luxury condo project planned for 64 Pine St. is not currently an affordable build, according to developer Tom Landry, who owns Portland-based Benchmark Real Estate.
Landry cited the city’s Inclusionary Zoning fee, which requires projects with 10 or more units to reserve 25% of those 10-plus units for lower-to-middle income households or pay a fee of $182,830 per unit to the city’s Housing Trust Fund.
Originally designed for nine units, developers explored bumping up to 12 to compensate for rising building costs. But the IZ fees would have added $548,490 to the budget, which Landry said made the project “a non-starter.”
Another paused project is Redfern Properties’ 327-unit apartment building planned for 165 Washington Ave. Jonathan Culley told Mainebiz that tariffs, interest rates and inclusionary zoning were driving costs too high.
A five-story mixed use building planned for 185 Commercial St. has also been sidelined, due to economic factors, concerns over crime and a slowing of the condo market on the peninsula.
“The changing environment of the downtown landscape relative to safety is a real concern. Buyers seem to be looking for alternatives to downtown,” said developer Steve Baumann.
Construction News From Around The State
- ReinCorp, based in Springvale, is building 18 affordable apartments on Sanford’s School
- Wright-Ryan Construction, of Portland, is managing the new Conners Emerson elementary school build in Bar Harbor. It will incorporate geothermal energy to power water-cooled modular heat pumps for the 100,000-square-foot building. Orono-based Sargent Corp. and ABM Mechanical, which has offices in Westbrook, Bangor and Hancock, are installing the 80 well closed-loop system. The $60.4 million building is designed by Harriman, which is headquartered in Portland and has offices in Auburn, Portsmouth, N.H., and Boston.
- South Portland-based Optimum Construction Inc. has built 30 of the planned 118-unit condominiums at 171 Brook St. near Pride’s Corner in Westbrook. Developer Brooks Edge Farm LLC is growing the 48-acre neighborhood in five phases.
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