MARKET WATCH

Artist housing? You got it.

By Sam Pfeifle

After a year of planning, an avoided broadside from the Citizens for a Comprehensive Plan, and a zoning change, Portland developer Peter Bass finally broke ground last week on the East Bayside Studio Project at 145-147 Anderson Street.

an email offering up first dibs to members of Portland Artists Dwellings and Studios (PADS), Bass reports that the new building will have “eight artist live/work condominiums,” ranging in size from 1150 to 1400 square feet. “David Lloyd, the architect, has come up with an interesting and unique building with an industrial vocabulary — both interior and exterior,” he writes. “This is not you typical phony-colony town house.”

You will have to pay for the condos, of course, and they’re not ridiculously cheap. “The units will cost between $120,000 and $160,000,” writes Bass, noting that the City of Portland ought to be helpful with low down-payments and interest rates through the Homeport and New Neighbors programs for those artists that qualify with lower than average incomes.

Though the housing project is barely off the ground (ooh, pun), Bass already has a deposit on one unit, and is entertaining visits from folks who would like in on the ground floor (ouch, another one). Serious artists can contact Bass by email at lbl@maine.rr.com.