PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 9, 2020
An award-winning plan calls for transforming the 90-acre Maine Mall property into a village center, with the addition of housing, a street grid and outdoor recreational spaces. Built 50 years ago on former farmland, the mall would remain the centerpiece of Maine’s largest retail area, but the underused parking lots that surround it would become a neighborhood where people could live and play, as well as work. The Maine Mall Transit Oriented District Concept Plan, produced for the city by the Greater Portland Council of Governments, aims to reduce suburban sprawl and traffic congestion with mixed-use development that would increase the livability and use of public transit in the shopping area.