A Portland developer has suspended plans for a $40 million luxury hotel project on a Commercial Street wharf.
Eric Cianchette, owner of the Maine Wharf and Portland Regency Hotel, has put the five-story hotel, restaurant and banquet project on hold as the city considers a number of waterfront zoning amendments, his attorney, Joe Stevens of Perkins Olson, told Mainebiz. “He’s decided to ask that it not be processed at this time,” Stevens says of the application. “He’s not completely abandoning the concept of the idea.”
Stevens submitted a letter to the city earlier this month notifying officials of the decision. Cianchette had applied for a change in a 1993 city ordinance that restricts hotel and other development on the waterfront. Those regulations were waived in 2006 to allow development of the city-owned Maine State Pier, a move that has prompted a number of private wharf owners to seek the same development rights.
Cianchette’s proposed amendment won’t move forward, but other amendments related to the waterfront central zone are scheduled come before the planning board later this summer or in early fall, according to Bill Needelman, senior city planner. Cianchette will likely reevaluate his project once the City Council issues a decision on the changes, Stevens says.
Cianchette’s plans, unveiled in January, also included a $10 million reconstruction of the pier and called for the first level of the Maine Wharf to be reserved for marine use.