December 2 – On the campus of the University of Southern Maine in Portland, near the central rotunda, a brutalist coliseum once described as one of the ugliest academic buildings in America sits empty.
The building, the former home of the University of Maine School of Law, has been vacant for nearly two years since the law school moved to Portland’s Old Port in 2023. But the University of Maine System simply doesn’t have the budget to demolish the building. at this point.
“There is no ribbon cutting for a building being demolished, no naming opportunity,” said Ryan Low, vice chancellor for finance and administration.
However, the university is in preliminary discussions about replacing the local landmark with staff and faculty housing.
The eight-story building cost $2.7 million to construct and opened in 1972. At the time, exposed concrete styles were popular, especially on college campuses. The building attracted attention in 2017 when the popular magazine Architectural Digest named it one of America’s seven ugliest academic buildings.
DEMOLITION DISINTEREST
Low said a period of declining student numbers prompted the state’s public universities to reassess campus infrastructure needs.
“We have buildings ready for a system of 30,000 students, and we have significantly less than that,” Low said. The system enrolled about 25,000 students this fall, the first year-over-year increase in enrollment in more than two decades.
Since 2011, the system has eliminated 400,000 square feet of space from its campuses, he said.
“But we have a list of another 500,000 square feet – including the law school, including Dickey-Wood on the Gorham campus, including facilities across the system – that we could remove as early as tomorrow if we had the resources if we had someone who would actually do the work,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s really a matter of resources.”
In January 2023, the law school officially moved from the Oakdale building to a rented modern glass and metal building at 300 Fore St. in Old Port. Portland’s Planning Board approved the move back in August 2021. The new 6,000 square meter school has nine high-tech learning spaces, two classrooms with a seating capacity of 100, a law library and legal aid clinics.
The move sparked conversations about the fate of the old law school building. Then-University of Maine System spokesperson Margaret Nagle said at the time that the building would eventually be demolished, although no plans had been finalized.
Low said the law school building is in “significant disrepair” – including leaks and regular flooding – and the cost to repair it would far exceed its value.
He said the system allocates $1 million a year for demolition, but that is only a fraction of what it would take to demolish the law school, which he said carries a price tag of more than $5 million. In the meantime, USM spends about $210,000 annually on building maintenance, including winterization costs, a fire suppression system and other amenities.
Low said it’s difficult to get donors, or lawmakers, enthusiastic about funding demolition work. But in university system buildings, the cost of demolishing a structure is often included in the budget for the new project that will take its place.
USM has not formally come to the board of directors with plans for a new project. But administrators say they are in early discussions about using the land for housing.
HOUSING HOPE
University of Southern Maine President Jacqueline Edmondson said the university is exploring a public-private partnership to build housing in place of the law school building.
“The idea is that we would build housing that would be affordable for faculty and staff,” Edmonson said. “Sometimes we have difficulty hiring faculty and staff because of the housing shortages in our region, as well as housing costs.”
The City of Portland contacted USM in February 2023 when it was looking for more space to expand emergency shelter capacity. But USM Chief Business Officer Justin Swift said the building did not have the necessary elements to serve as even a temporary shelter.
“The building is not intended for residential purposes, not even just for sanitary purposes. There are no usable showers, bathtubs or anything else in that building,” Swift said. “It was intended to be an office space and classroom for a law school. So it is not currently set up to serve even a residential purpose without major investment.”
The parcel on which the law school is located is just over an acre, and Swift said it could house about 75 units, depending on the type of housing the university settles on. The university has not yet decided on a model for managing housing, and Swift said it is too early to provide any kind of timeline.
He said demolition is the only path forward that makes financial sense at this point.
“The law building was built in 1972 and the building standards were different than what people expect today. Right now that building has about $22.9 million in deferred maintenance, so that’s also a challenge,” Swift said. “Even if we put that kind of investment into it, would it meet today’s standards and expectations?”
‘One’s eye wound is another’s jewel’
When Architectural Digest called the building one of the worst in the country, the law school staff who worked there at the time did not mince their words. Nicole Vinal, then assistant dean for finance and administration, described the building as “quite unfortunate” and the workspace as impractical.
“Everyone’s office is shaped like a piece of cake,” she said. “You can’t find furniture that fits properly.”
But she said the architect apparently loved his work, so much so that he sat outside in a lawn chair to admire it.
When the system announced plans for demolition in 2023, the organization Greater Portland Landmarks published a tribute to the center.
“In a city whose historic character is well reflected in the understated traditionalism of most of its architecture, the Law Building is daringly modern and unapologetically controversial,” Archer Thomas wrote in the piece. ‘Admittedly, the building is difficult to like. First of all, the Law Building sticks out like a sore thumb, an eight-story behemoth in the last state where the tallest building is a church.”
Thomas said the degradation of many mid-century modern buildings made of concrete, such as the law school, is happening across the country, and urged appreciation for Maine’s most significant brutalist structure while it is still there.
“One man’s thorn in another’s side is another man’s gem,” Thomas wrote. “If the Law House is truly beyond saving, which could very well be the case, it is imperative that we as the public at least give it the respect it deserves.”
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