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, one discovers 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 on 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 what it is as someplace 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 prefer 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
for downtown 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.