Safdie Architects has previewed their new district-sized development for Portland, Maine. The plan for Old Port Square, which reimagines a 4-acre plot in the city’s Old Port neighborhood, calls for the construction of a new 380-foot mixed-use tower (the state’s tallest) and a reintegration of its site into the city’s urban fabric.

Their design of the 30-story tower is said to be inspired by historic New England lighthouses. The concept extends the architectonics and reflects the vernacular materiality of the surrounding district’s 18th/19th structures vertically to a promontory that stands out as a 'beacon' overlooking Casco Bay from underneath an extended capital. Safdie says he was inspired by Maine’s lighthouses in particular as the "icons [of] good purpose."

Programmatically, the tower includes an indoor-outdoor lobby café, a nine-story/90-room hotel, 14 residential floors, and the culminating pavilion made from a vaulted timber and glass canopy and containing a sky lounge and restaurant feature at its crown.

Surrounding its transparent, pilotis-supported 33-foot base at the ground level are new public areas framed by another two-story, 8,000-square-foot mass timber and glass retail pavilion that keys the gateway to the district’s western edge.

Elsewhere, other existing structures will be restored or have already been rehabilitated with help from Pentagram and Michael Boucher Landscape Architecture. A press release says the maritime character of the site was their most important consideration, aligning with the heritage character of the peninsula. There are no construction timelines for the rest of the Old Port Square project at this time.

Safdie, which has an office in Somerville, Massachusetts, is busy at work on a new ski village project in Killington, Vermont, after completing other corporate designs in Singapore and Shanghai last year. The city is also pursuing a major expansion of the Portland Museum of Art that's to be designed by LEVER Architecture after winning an international competition in early 2023. 

Interested in working in the region? A look at firms currently hiring around Maine can be found here.