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by Portland Parks Conservatory We’re thrilled to announce that the fundraising campaign to build the new 21st Century Community Pool at Dougherty Field has officially reached its $1.25 million goal. This milestone reflects months of dedication, generosity, and community spirit from more than 150 individuals, families, foundations, civic groups, and businesses who came together to make this vision a reality.
The new 21st Century Community Pool carries forward the legacy of the beloved Kiwanis Pool, which first opened in 1961. For more than six decades, the Kiwanis Pool was a summertime landmark for Portlanders, a place where kids learned to swim, families gathered on hot days, and neighbors came together to enjoy one of the city’s most cherished public spaces. After 63 years of service, it was time for an upgrade. The new facility will build on that legacy, providing a safer, more accessible, and modern space that meets the needs of today’s residents while preserving the sense of community that made the original pool so special. The new pool will feature a waterslide, splash pad, zero-grade entry for accessibility, and dedicated lap and water-walking areas. Once open, it will accommodate up to 400 users at a time, four times the capacity of the old Kiwanis Pool, ensuring that everyone in Portland, regardless of age or ability, can enjoy the water safely. Construction is already well underway at Dougherty Field. The pool foundation has been poured and is currently undergoing leak testing, with concrete for the deck and splash pad to follow soon. Installation of the slides will begin after that, keeping the project on schedule for a full summer season in 2026. The campaign was co-chaired by Rachael and Justin Alfond and supported by a dedicated volunteer cabinet including Micky Bondo, Gaetan Davis, Mary Noyes, Sue Palmer, Molly Curren Rowles, Kate Snyder, Nate Stevens, and Conservancy Executive Director Jack Phillips. Lead gifts that propelled the campaign were generously provided by The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, Rachael and Justin Alfond, Unum, Amazon, Cabin Foundation, MaineHealth, Kennebec Savings Bank, Jean Hoffman, Laura Kittle and Jeremy Moser, John Ryan and Jenny Scheu, Margaret E. Burnham Charitable Trust, Pond Family Foundation, OceanView at Falmouth, Lucas Geant Fund, Horizon Foundation, and several anonymous donors. When the pool opens in 2026, there will be a ribbon-cutting celebration to invite the entire community to mark this exciting new chapter for Portland. Thank you to everyone who gave, supported, and believed in this project. Pool Campaign Supporters (listed alphabetically)
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 MCDP and Backyard ADUs are bringing affordable homeownership within reach at Dougherty Commons.
MaineBiz recently featured an article on Dougherty Commons, our new affordable condominium development in Portland. You can read the full piece here: In Portland, affordable home ownership taking shape at Dougherty Commons.  In a stunning display of innovation and efficiency, crews recently assembled an entire condo building—four three-bedroom units—on Portland’s Congress Street in just one day. This milestone for Dougherty Condos, located at Park Avenue and Congress Street, demonstrates how modular construction can meaningfully expedite homebuilding in Maine’s tight housing market.
Every condo arrived in giant factory-built sections, complete with kitchens, bathrooms, fixtures, cabinets, and countertops—much like putting together a car, but for houses. It cuts down construction time and protects workers from cold weather delays, fewer mistakes, and unpredictable jobsite conditions. I often liken traditional onsite construction to “building a car in your driveway.” Modular building flips that script—now you build efficiency in the factory, then quickly assemble it at the site. This model aligns perfectly with Maine’s goals: more housing, built smarter and faster, without sacrificing quality or craftsmanship. After the day’s big installation, crews will next focus on finishing touches like roofing and siding over the next few weeks. At Maine Cooperative Development Partners, we see how this approach can power affordable, durable housing solutions across communities. With modular methods, we can scale timely construction, support workers year-round, and deliver homes that work harder—without wasting time or resources.  When you’re considering your next move—literally—deciding whether to rent or buy is more than just a financial choice. It’s about your lifestyle, your flexibility, and your long-term plans. At Maine Cooperative Development Partners, we believe this decision deserves clarity and confidence.
When Buying Makes Sense Buying can be a powerful way to build equity, stabilize housing costs, and shape your living space over time. It often works best when:
When Renting May Be Smarter Renting often offers more flexibility and affordability—especially when:
Check the Numbers Yourself Every situation is different. That’s why I recommend using the NerdWallet Rent vs Buy Calculator. Enter your rent, home price, down payment, and tax details—then compare the short- and long-term costs to see when you might break even. Bottom Line There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. But if you're financially stable, planning to stay put, and focused on building future value, buying could be the right path. If you need flexibility, lower upfront costs, or you're still saving up, renting might wisely serve you now. Use the calculator above to see which option makes sense for you.  At Maine Cooperative Development Partners, we’re thrilled to be working with Backyard ADUs to build our condos at Dougherty Commons. Their innovative, modular approach to housing is helping us meet Maine’s urgent need for quality, attainable homes—faster and smarter. Backyard ADUs recently reached an exciting milestone: they’ve now placed their 100th home here in Maine! It’s an incredible achievement that speaks to their dedication, creativity, and the hardworking team that is literally building solutions to our housing crisis box by box. You can see the celebration and learn more about their work in this WMTW news spot: Made in Maine: Backyard ADUs delivers solution to Maine’s housing crisis, box by box. At Dougherty Commons, we’re proud to be part of this momentum. Together, we’re creating not just homes, but communities where families, workers, and neighbors can thrive. here in
In the News: Aceto Kimball Landscape Architecture Featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine6/10/2025  We’re thrilled to share that one of our longtime collaborators, Aceto Kimball Landscape Architecture + Urban Design, is featured in the October 2024 print issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine. The article, titled “In Their Backyards,” profiles the firm's innovative work on two Maine-based housing projects that directly address the state’s affordable housing crisis.
One of the highlighted projects is Dougherty Commons—an ambitious, city-led housing development taking shape on a small, city-owned parcel in Portland’s Libbytown neighborhood. Aceto Kimball is leading the site design for this 125-unit community, which will bring together a range of housing types—including two-story townhomes, three-story row houses, and a five-story apartment building—on just over three acres of land. Thoughtfully arranged around a woonerf-style shared street and inviting common green spaces, the project embodies a fresh approach to housing development: one that emphasizes human-scaled design, walkability, and community connection. The name “Dougherty Commons” honors its neighbor, the 18-acre Dougherty Field, helping to tie the new development to the larger fabric of the neighborhood. As the article notes, this project represents a strategic shift in how the City of Portland is leveraging underutilized public land to address a worsening housing shortage. From 2017 to 2023, the median home price in Portland doubled—a stark trend that has spurred local officials to reexamine city-owned properties as viable sites for mixed-income housing. Dougherty Commons is one of the first major test cases of this strategy. At MCDP, we’re proud to partner with teams like Aceto Kimball who push the boundaries of what equitable development can look like. Their design leadership—grounded in ecological sensitivity, urban design principles, and a deep commitment to social equity—is helping us all imagine a more inclusive future for Maine’s cities and towns. You can read the full article in the print edition of Landscape Architecture Magazine, October 2024 issue or click here for a pdf copy. More About Aceto Kimball Landscape Architecture + Urban Design PORTLAND, ME | JACKSON, NH ☎️ 207 221 3390 🌐 acetokimball.com New housing project in Portland to include affordable units and first-of-its-kind 'co-op' units12/28/2023
Author: Hannah Yechivi (NEWS CENTER Maine)
Published: 12:40 PM EST December 27, 2023 PORTLAND, Maine — For many years now, the city of Portland has been looking for more affordable housing units. In the early 2000s, the Portland city council chose a number of parcels in the city to put up for competition for ideas to develop housing. Maine Cooperative Development Partners won the rights from the city to develop three out of the four housing parcels. One project site is located by the Dougherty fields, and the other two are in the North Deering area. The ones in North Deering will be a mix of low-income tax-credit apartments and "c-op" housing units. Tax increment financing (TIF) will support the proposal for Lambert Woods North, which will be 72 low-income tax-credit apartments, for families earning up to 60% of the area median income (that's around $70,000 a year for a family of four). To build those affordable housing units, MCDV has partnered with the Boston-based nonprofit developer Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH). Cory Fellows is the vice president of real estate development for POAH. Fellows said the recently approved TIF will make a big difference. "One of the big challenges that we are seeing with affordable housing right now regardless of location is that the rents with affordable housing, you fix the rents so that people can afford to live there long-term, so your revenue from the rent side is capped, if you will. But the expenses are not, so you are still subject to increased utility costs, insurance costs have been a very big one in the industry, and local property taxes can be a big variable," Fellows said. Lambert Woods South will be a 90-unit middle income cooperative, for households earning 80% to 100% of the area median income (that's around $120,000 a year for a family of 4). A partner of Maine Cooperative Development Partners, Liz Trice, said the co-op project will be the first of its kind in Portland. "For a long time we've just had rentals where the prices tend to go up every year on people," Trice explained. "And then we have home ownership, which is really hard for a lot of people to get into, so we see that in other states there are different forms of ownership that allow people more steps up along the way. So it's kind of in between renting and owning in that it gives you cost-stable housing for a really long time but its not as hard to get into as home ownership." Trice also explained that "co-op" housing is also a way of retaining public investment in the public ownership, so as long as people live there, they get to have stable housing costs like an owner. "But they didn't have to get a mortgage at the beginning, and when they leave they don't get a windfall of increased equity," she said. "They get to get back their shared price, which is sort of like a down payment with appreciation, but they don't get to get a lot of money like if you had a bank loan." Last but not least, Dougherty Commons project by the Dougherty fields will have a little bit of everything: low-income apartments, middle-income apartments, and middle-income condos that people can buy. Last week, the Portland city council approved to support the condo project with a $1.5M housing trust fund. Trice said this whole project is one-of-a-kind. "There's a bunch of things here. One, the city putting up their own land is innovative, the fact that they specifically asked for innovative models," she said. "And on these three parcels of land we have four different types of ownership and financing, so that's a really innovating thing that we hope that by doing all the hard work we've done for the past four years, that this will make it much easier to have new housing types in the future." Original Article and Video Portland Press Herald, Feb 28, 2023 - By Rachel Ohm, staff writer.
A newly approved project in Portland’s North Deering neighborhood is expected to add 162 units of affordable housing. The Lambert Woods project by Maine Cooperative Development Partners is moving ahead after the planning board’s 6-0 vote Tuesday to approve a major site plan for the project at 165 Lambert St. Chairperson Maggie Stanley was absent. The firm believes the project and a sister project being developed in Libbytown are the first limited-equity co-ops in Portland – an ownership model that proponents say boosts affordability and gives residents more say over management and costs. “The values we’ve brought to this all along are aspects of community, environment and also affordability,” Liz Trice, a partner at Maine Cooperative Development Partners, said before Tuesday’s vote. “We are sticking only with models that provide long-term affordability and we have done a ton of work to make the site really compact and preserve the surrounding forest.” The project was approved conditionally, with the board also stipulating that Maine Cooperative Development Partners comply with a handful of additional requests, including that they provide documentation from utility companies about their ability to serve the project and contribute $13,200 to the city’s tree fund. The project is expected to add an influx of much-needed affordable housing on either side of Washington Avenue Extension between Lambert and Auburn streets. . . read more and see images PORTLAND (WGME) – Many working families have been priced out of the housing market in Maine. Now, a new development project is promising hundreds of new homes in the Portland area that median-income families can afford. In 2019, the City of Portland chose four parcels of land to be developed for workforce housing. Three of those parcels now belong to Maine Cooperative Development Partners. "In a cooperative, you buy a share of the whole, and then you get a proprietary lease to live there,” Maine Cooperative Development Partners Partner Liz Trice said. “So you have stable housing costs for as long as you live there." In order to qualify, a single person must make at least $47,000 a year, ranging up to, for a family of six, $130,000 a year. "But again, those numbers are subject to change, and we'll have to remeasure them at the time people move in in 2024," Maine Cooperative Development Partners Partner Brian Eng said. With another two years until completion, the land at 57 Douglass Street is full of overgrown grass, but the area holds a ton of potential, Trice says. "Behind you is a Little League field,” Trice said. “This is going to become a new basketball court. There's a brand-new playground going over there. And then back here there are soccer fields." The Douglass location is a three-minute walk to the nearest bus stop that Eng says eases the strain of a long drive to work for some. "We've heard loud and clear from multiple employers across all different industries here in Portland, talking about how difficult it is to attract and retain talent these days because of the shortage of housing that's located close to where people work," Eng said. Between all three parcels and 200 homes, the project's estimated cost is $40 million, funded through the City of Portland and HUD, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. "We are currently waiting to hear on grants from the county and from the city,” Trice said. “And the county grants are especially important to us because that helps keep our share price low." The project is in its third week taking $500 deposits to secure a spot in line for a house. For more information, click here. wgme.com/news/local/new-development-project-promises-hundreds-homes-median-income-families-portland-maine-housing-market About half of the 120 units in Dougherty Commons in Portland will be part of a cooperative housing model in which residents will jointly own and manage the property. Renderings of the Doughtery Commons project, which will include 57 units of limited equity cooperative housing and a 63-unit apartment building of mostly affordable apartments. Rendering courtesy of Maine Cooperative Development Partners/Aceto Landscape Architects
BY RACHEL OHM, STAFF WRITER 5/30/22 A newly approved project in Portland’s Libbytown neighborhood is expected to add 120 units of housing, about half set up in a cooperative model in which residents will jointly own and manage the property. The remainder of the units at Dougherty Commons, which was approved by the Planning Board last week, will be a mix of apartments, mostly affordable, some market rate. Just over half of the total units in the project will be available at rates affordable to households earning either at or below 60 percent or at or below 80 percent of the area median income. “We’re excited about it,” said Liz Trice, a partner with Maine Cooperative Development Partners, the Portland company that is developing and will manage the cooperative housing part of the project. “We’re excited for the opportunity to do something we feel good about and that we feel will be a good model going forward.” The project, located at 57 Douglass St., came out of the city’s 2020 request for proposals for affordable housing on the former site of the West School, which was demolished in 2016. Maine Cooperative Development Partners was selected in November 2020 along with the Szanton Company, which will develop and manage a five-story, 63-unit apartment building on the site. They plan to break ground in the spring of 2023. Maine Cooperative Development Partners is working on a 57-unit limited equity cooperative made up of seven townhome-style buildings. Cooperatives are owned and managed by residents rather than landlords, and proponents say they can help create permanent affordable housing for people who don’t make enough to afford market rates. In a limited equity co-op, as opposed to a market rate co-op, the buy-in is often lower but there are also restrictions on the amount of profit residents can get from selling their shares. State law requires that homes in limited equity co-ops be affordable to households making 100 percent of the area median income, which in 2021 was $70,000 for one person and $100,000 for a family of four in Cumberland County, according to Maine Cooperative Development Partners. In addition, the city is requiring that 25 percent of the project – or 15 units – be reserved for households earning 80 percent of the area median income or less. The current cost estimate for the cooperative at Dougherty Commons is for residents to pay an up-front share price ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 and a monthly amount including utilities ranging from roughly $1,000 to $2,500 – based on the size of the unit, income of the household and the number of people in the household. “What we’ve been seeing right now for the last five years or so is that for a lot of people who would have had the opportunity to buy a home in Portland, that’s become impossible,” Trice said. “We think that’s a likely market (for our project.) Another market would be people who maybe were happy renting but now they’re realizing monthly rents are just going to keep going up and they may be forced out if they don’t do something different.” The 63-unit apartment building being built by the Szanton Company will include 46 deed-restricted workforce housing units, to be rented at an affordable rate to households earning at or below 60 percent of the area median income, and the remaining units rented at market rate. Right now, an affordable one-bedroom unit would rent for about $1,200 while a market-rate one-bedroom would be about $1,500, according to Carl Szanton, development associate with the Szanton Company. Szanton said it’s possible that some of the market-rate units in the building could be flipped to workforce units because of rising construction costs and tax credits that are available for building affordable units. “Housing in the city of Portland is in such short supply right now, so we’re really excited to build much-needed housing right in the middle of the city that will be affordable to low- and moderate-income Portlanders,” Szanton said. Zack Barowitz, a member and past chair of the board of the Libbytown Neighborhood Association, said members of the association and neighbors generally have been supportive of the project, though there have been some concerns about an overabundance of parking. The project is slated to include 78 parking spots, though Barowitz said there is ample street parking. “There are environmental concerns. It constitutes a bit of dead space and it encourages more car usage by having parking included,” Barowitz said. Ultimately, though, he said members of the association are excited about the project. “Many of the neighbors are quite pleased to have so many workforce housing units in the neighborhood, which will add to the enrichment of the neighborhood and a badly needed workforce for the city,” he said. https://www.pressherald.com/2022/05/30/libbytown-complex-with-affordable-housing-wins-approval/ |
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