By Zack Anchors

Staff Writer

    The fates of two buildings owned by the city of
South Portland are up in the air. Both the South Portland Armory and
the Mary Marsh School were built in the early 1940s and currently sit
in abandoned disrepair. While the school building, in the city’s west
end Redbank neighborhood, is up for sale and expected to eventually be
demolished, what will happen to the Armory is far less certain.

    A committee established by the City Council to
recommend a use for the Armory is expected to explore options ranging
from converting the old Army National Guard center into a new city hall
to selling it outright. But at this point, after three meetings of the
committee, there is no shortage of creative ideas. Other uses that have
generated interest include transforming the 35,000 square-foot building
into an arts center, a library, an eventual expansion of the public
safety facilities or a business incubator.  The committee has also
received suggestions to provide space in the building for the South
Portland Land Trust, the South Portland Historical Society, the Greater
Portland Chamber of Commerce or the Maine Sports Hall of Fame. City
Councilor Jim Soule, who co-chairs the committee, says it’s too early
to make any guesses at the path the city will eventually follow.

    “I would say we’re in the infancy of the process at
this time,” said Soule. “Obviously, we don’t want this to run on
forever, but it’s going to take some time to get all the input from all
the stakeholders.”

    The Armory sits adjacent to a busy intersection on
the southern side of Broadway, neighboring the building that houses the
city’s police and fire departments. Since the Army National Guard
downsized and moved out of the building in the early 1990s, the armory
has been vacant, except for some equipment the fire department has
stored in the building’s enormous gymnasium in recent years. The
building was initially bought by the Museum of Glass and Ceramics to be
transformed into a new museum space, but the organization went bankrupt
in 2005 before they had a chance to occupy it. The city of South
Portland, which had previously sought to buy the 2.74-acre property,
then issued a successful bid of $650,000. Among the reasons city
officials gave for buying the building was it’s position as a gateway
to the city at the base of the Casco Bridge, it’s relatively low price,
it’s historical value, and its position beside the fire and police
departments.

    One of the ideas for the building that several city
officials have expressed interest in is the possibility of transforming
it into a new city hall.

    “The idea was a municipal building that would be a
gateway to the city,” said City Councilor Kay Loring, co-chair of the
committee. “It could be a way of consolidating all the buildings—the
planning department, code enforcement, assessing—and placing it all
under one roof.”

    Marion Peterson, director of South Portland
libraries, came to a recent meeting of the committee to discuss the
possibility of using the space as a new library. Loring said she thinks
the armory may be large enough to host both the municipal offices and a
library. Residents of the neighborhood also attended a recent committee
meeting and Loring said they were supportive of a library use for the
armory.

    “The neighbors were quite open to having a library
there,” said Loring. “There’s also a possibility that if the library
needs a second floor there’s room there for it.”

    Among the other stakeholders that the committee
intends to involve in their meetings are the fire and police
departments, the Knightville-Mill Creek Neighborhood Association, the
Waterfront Market Association, the Maine Historical Preservation
Society, and the Greater Portland Chamber of Commerce.

    Assistant City Manager Jim Gailey, who has been
working with the committee, said it was important that the committee
try to find a use that will minimize any burden on taxpayers and
satisfy the building’s neighbors. Gailey said the committee is likely
about midway through its projected lifetime.

    “We were thinking of a six-month process,” said
Gailey. “We got started in November and we’re shooting for a May end.”

    After the committee settles on a use for the armory
to recommend to the City Council, the next step will be to begin
estimating the costs and other logistics of implementing the proposal,
such as traffic flow, building repairs and renovations, and parking
needs.

    The next meeting of the Armory Committee will be on February 8 at 7pm.

    “Public input is encouraged,” said Councilor Soule.

    The city will be accepting bids for the Mary Marsh
School, which was put out to bid for the second time on Jan. 5, until
Feb. 20. Gailey said that because of the poor condition of the
building, which is currently in violation of city ordinance, it would
need to be demolished by any future buyer. The city would allow the new
owner six months to do so after the purchase. Because the building sits
in a “Residential G” zoning district, Gailey said the most likely
future use would be the construction of housing, although professional
office buildings would also be allowed. It is expected 10 housing units
could fit onto the site. The elementary school was closed in June of
2005 and its fewer than 100 students were transferred to Skillin School.

    “There just got to be falling enrollment in the
area,” said Gailey. “The school was in very bad shape environmentally
and structurally.”

`An environmental study of the building found that it has high levels
of asbestos and hazardous waste such as mercury light bulbs and
computer monitors that need to be disposed of. The building will only
be sold by the city on an “as is” basis.