Safdie Architects’ design for Old Port Square in Portland, Maine begins with a question: how can a tall building belong in a low-rise, historic city? The answer comes in the form of a beacon — an architectural gesture rooted in the region’s maritime lineage. Rising 380 feet at 45 Union Street, the slender tower recalls Maine’s lighthouses, reinterpreted in glass, timber, and stone. Designed in collaboration with local developer East Brown Cow, the project aims not to rethread the urban fabric, long frayed by midcentury urban renewal.
The proposal is less about a single structure and more about the reassembly of a neighborhood. Encompassing four acres in the heart of the Old Port district, the masterplan introduces residences, hospitality, retail, and cultural spaces, while rehabilitating existing buildings and weaving new pedestrian paths into the historic grid. A timber-and-glass pavilion at 55 Union Street marks the western threshold, while a vaulted rooftop sky lobby crowns the tower, framing expansive views of Casco Bay and the White Mountains.
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visualizations courtesy Safdie Architects
A Mixed-Use Vertical Neighborhood by Safdie architects
Safdie Architects’ tower draws on the visual weight and materiality of the 19th-century architecture across Portland, Maine. Its base is transparent and porous, with a 33-foot-high glazed plinth hosting dual lobbies and a café that spills into the square. Raised on pilotis, the building is both grounded and open, creating permeability at the pedestrian level. The palette and proportions echo the adjacent brick warehouses and cobbled streets, while the structure above shifts into lighter tones and forms, culminating in a vaulted lantern that nods to the lighthouse metaphor without replicating it.
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The architects organize the development as a stacked sequence of programmatic layers. A 90-room hotel occupies the first nine floors above the base, followed by 14 levels of residences offering one- and two-bedroom layouts. The uppermost floors introduce a public-facing realm, a sky lobby and restaurant nested beneath a vaulted timber ceiling. This layering of uses mirrors the diversity of the surrounding city block, inviting a mix of residents, visitors, and locals into a shared vertical neighborhood.
Safdie Architects unveils plans for Old Port Square in Portland, Maine
Extending the Urban Landscape of portland, maine
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Safdie Architects’ vision for Portland, Maine does not end with the tower. Working closely with landscape architect Michael Boucher and graphic design firm Pentagram, the team has devised a comprehensive strategy for the public realm. The surrounding streetscape will be reimagined with outdoor dining terraces, upgraded pedestrian routes, and new storefronts that activate the street. An earlier phase — the renovation of the Fore Street Garage — already integrated solar panels, EV stations, and new retail frontage, signaling the project’s layered and adaptive approach.
A pavilion at 55 Union Street offers an intimate foil to the tower, with about 8,000 square feet of retail across two levels. A sculptural stair and vaulted wood roof canopy echo the formal vocabulary of the tower’s summit. Together, the two buildings create a dialog across the square, unified by shared material expression but scaled for varied urban experiences.
the project introduces a 30-story lighthouse-inspired tower
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Safdie Architects’ work on Portland, Maine’s Old Port Square integrates preservation as a central theme. Beyond new construction, the project includes recent renovations of existing buildings at 200 and 220 Middle Street. These updates brought new glass storefronts, a grand staircase, and improved circulation — small moves that collectively restore continuity to a block once severed by demolition and disuse. The architecture is never stand-alone. It’s embedded in a longer arc of recovery and reinvention.
The development is part of a larger body of work that seeks to cultivate livable density. Known for projects such as Habitat 67 in Montreal and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, the firm consistently returns to ideas of connection, landscape integration, and civic accessibility.
Safdie Architects aims to repair urban fabric in Portland’s historic district
the design includes retail, hotel, and residential programs
Cory LaForge always liked a particular restaurant space on Main Street in Bucksport, which recently housed My Buddy’s Place and the Friar’s Brewhouse Tap Room before that.
So much so that, when it became available two months ago, he decided to open his own restaurant there.
Salsa Shack Maine, which opened in early December, is a physical location for the food truck business he’s operated out of Ellsworth and Orland for the last two years. The new spot carrying tacos, burritos and quesadillas adds to a growing restaurant scene in Bucksport and is meant to be a welcoming community space.
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“I just loved the feeling of having a smaller restaurant,” LaForge said. “It feels more intimate. This place is designed where you can have a good conversation or talk to your customers, like they’re not just another number on a ticket.”
Salsa Shack Maine joins a growing number of new restaurants on Main Street in Bucksport. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN
After growing up in the midcoast, LaForge eventually moved west to work in restaurants at ski areas, where he was exposed to more cultural diversity and new types of food – including tacos.
“It’s like all these different flavors that we’re not exposed to in Maine, so it’s like, I feel like I’ve been living a lie my whole life,” he said. “It was fun to bring all those things that I learned back here.”
When he realized his goal of opening a food truck in 2023 after returning to Maine, LaForge found the trailer he’d purchased on Facebook Marketplace was too small to fit anything but tortillas – and the Salsa Shack was born.
It opened at the Ellsworth Harbor Park in 2023 and operated out of the Orland Community Center in the winter. What started as an experiment took off in popularity and has been busy ever since.
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LaForge calls his style “Maine-Mex:” a mix of authentic street tacos in a build-your-own format with different salsas and protein. Speciality salsas include corn and black bean, roasted poblano, pineapple jalapeno and mango Tajin.
The larger kitchen space in the new restaurant has allowed a menu expansion to include quesadillas, burritos and burrito bowls in addition to the tacos, nachos and taco salad bowls sold from the food truck. Regular specials are also on the menu.
Salsa Shack’s new Bucksport kitchen means room for owner Cory LaForge to experiment. He’s added quesadillas, burritos and burrito bowls to the menu alongside regular specials, such as this shrimp taco. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN
More new menu items are likely ahead, according to LaForge, along with a beer and wine license and expanded hours in the spring.
The food truck will live on for now, too; he’s signed up for a few events in the coming months.
Starting Jan. 6, the restaurant will also offer a buy-two-get-one-free “Taco Tuesday” promotion.
“It’s a really fun vibe here, and I feel like everyone finds it very comfortable and easy to come in and order,” LaForge said, comparing the restaurant’s atmosphere to the television show Cheers. “Even if you have to sit down and wait a little while, we always have some fun conversations going on.”
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So far, the welcome has been warm locally, he said, both from residents and the other new restaurant owners who help each other out. LaForge’s sole employee, Connor MacLeod, is also a familiar face from MacLeod’s Restaurant, which closed in March after 45 years on Main Street.
When it shut its doors, people in town weren’t sure where they would go, according to LaForge. But four new establishments opened in 2025, offering a range from Thai food to diner offerings.
“It’s kind of fun to see so [many] culinary changes,” he said.
The Salsa Shack is currently open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
The logos for streaming services Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and Sling TV are pictured on a remote control on Aug. 13, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (Jenny Kane/Associated Press)
Maine consumers will soon see a new line on their monthly Netflix and Hulu bills. Starting Jan. 1, digital streaming services will be included in the state’s 5.5% sales tax.
The new charge — billed by the state as a way to level the playing field around how cable and satellite services and streaming services are taxed — is among a handful of tax changes coming in the new year.
The sales tax on adult-use cannabis will increase from 10% to 14%, also on Jan. 1. Taxes on cigarettes will increase $1.50 per pack — from $2 to $3.50 — on Jan. 5.
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All three changes are part of the $320 million budget package lawmakers approved in June as an addition to the baseline $11.3 billion two-year budget passed in March.
Here are a few things to know about the streaming tax:
1. Why is this new tax taking effect?
Taxes on streaming services have been a long time coming in Maine. Former Republican Gov. Paul LePage proposed the idea in 2017, and it was pitched by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, in 2020 and 2024. The idea was rejected all three times — until this year.
State officials said last spring the change creates fairness in the sales tax as streaming services become more popular and ubiquitous. It’s also expected to generate new revenue for the state.
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2. What services are impacted?
Currently, music and movies that are purchased and downloaded from a website are subject to sales tax, but that same music and those same movies are not taxed when streamed online.
The new changes add sales tax to monthly subscriptions for movie, television and audio streaming services, including Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, Spotify and Pandora. Podcasts and ringtones or other sound recordings are also included.
3. How much is it likely to cost you?
The new tax would add less than $1 to a standard Netflix subscription without ads priced at $17.99 per month. An $89.99 Hulu live television subscription would increase by about $5 per month.
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Beginning Jan. 1, providers will be required to state the amount of sales tax on customers’ receipts or state that their price includes Maine sales tax.
4. How much new revenue is this generating for the state?
The digital streaming tax is expected to bring in $5 million in new revenue in fiscal year 2026, which ends June 30. After that, it’s projected to bring in $12.5 million annually, with that figure expected to increase to $14.3 million by 2029.
The tax increase on cigarettes, which also includes an equivalent hike on other tobacco products, is expected to boost state revenues by about $75 million in the first year.
The cannabis sales tax increase, meanwhile, will be offset in part by a reduction in cannabis excise taxes, which are paid by cultivation facilities on transfers to manufacturers or retailers. The net increase in state revenue will be about $3.9 million in the first full year, the state projects.
Cars and trucks travel northbound along the Maine Turnpike in Arundel through a messy wintry mix on Feb. 4, 2022. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
A wintry mix is forecasted to come down on Maine starting in the early hours of Monday morning.
A mix of sleet and snow is expected to start falling around 1 a.m. Monday in the Portland area and closer to 3 a.m. in the Lewiston area. The mix will likely transition to freezing rain on Monday morning in time for the morning commute, making roads icy, according to the National Weather Service in Gray.
“That’s going to make conditions not ideal for traveling,” said Stephen Baron, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.
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As temperatures inch above 32 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday afternoon, the freezing rain is forecasted to transition to regular rain. Ice on the roads will start to melt over the afternoon as well.
The forecast for the rest of the week is fairly clear as of now. The only other potential precipitation is on Wednesday, with a festive snowfall on New Year’s Eve “around the countdown,” said Baron.
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Sophie is a community reporter for Cumberland, Yarmouth, North Yarmouth and Falmouth and previously reported for the Forecaster. Her memories of briefly living on Mount Desert Island as a child drew her…
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