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.