Two mystics and two business sages chart Portland’s future.

Winterguide 2020

By Kyle Battle

“We’re going to call in the spirit of Portland in 2020 and read what’s coming up,” says psychic Sarabelle Gruber. She shuffles her tarot deck and draws. “The most amount of growth will be in communication and quickness of the mind. Younger people with lots of resources are coming. There’s going to be a trend of buying property. We’re going to figure out this housing crisis.

“The strength of Portland is in food. We’ll see ecologically sound restaurants—this is a trend Guidance is showing me—and everything is edible. People are going to start using things like straws made of ice and edible plates.”

The Driving Force: No Drivers!

Jessica Estes, partner at The Boulos Company, believes metropolitan parking garages will soon become obsolete as Portland goes more deeply green. “We’ll all be using self-driving cars or driving will eventually be a service.” New parking garages will be built with future conversion in mind. Residential and office are the two product types that would make sense, with retail, possibly, on the lower levels.”

New Lamps for Old

Hospitality companies are repurposing old neighborhood landmarks. Hotels like The Press Hotel and The Francis have inspired more boutique hotels that, as Estes says, “are made to fit Portland rather than being ubiquitous to their brand.” Poised to open in 2021, Canopy by Hilton will be a six-story, 135-room lifestyle hotel across from the E. Swasey & Co. building on Commercial Street, complete with a rooftop bar and over 2,000 square feet of space for special event capacities. Similar hotels are popping up across the city, like the Cambria, AC Hotel, and an upcoming “guesthouse” in the old church on Munjoy Hill called Best Bower. The six-suite, neighborhood-driven space is owned by Pliny and Melanie Reynolds, who also own Terlingua.

“There’s been a lot of publicity around the restaurant and hospitality industries,” says Estes. “I don’t think it’s a bubble. It’s going to continue to bring people into the city. Retail is transforming into a more experiential product. We’re going to see more businesses like escape rooms, ax throwing, and specialized health clubs.”

As the new moves in, some of the old is inevitably pushed out. Local roller-skating staple Happy Wheels, whose location is owned by the Paul White company, closed its doors forever on December 15. Paul White, CEO, says what will move into the site is “for the developers to announce. We don’t know for sure, and nothing is finalized.”

Navigating the Gold Coast

“When it comes to the residential side of real estate,” says John Hatcher of The Hatcher Real Estate Group, “over 38 percent of our transactions this past year were cash. Because of this, we saw prices decline in the greater Portland area, but not surrounding areas. This trend will continue into 2020 and beyond.

“Growth depends on what the city allows. At this point, they want to keep Portland a working waterfront.” Roughly $176,000 in funding has been approved by the city to build an interim park along the eastern waterfront near the cruise ship landing. The city initially lobbied for a $16M version of the park, but has, for now, put that plan on the back-burner due to its skirmishes among Portland residents.

Remember Erebus?

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Portland loved its trendy store Erebus on Center Street. With counterculture fashions and an unspoken wink at hemp use, it channeled San Francisco style with a Haight-Ashbury theme.

Fast-forward to 2020: Lenny Doon Supply Company will be the newest occupants of the ground-floor space with extremely high-visibility at the Schwartz building on Congress Square. This vacant space across the square from Portland Museum of Art has been boarded up for over a decade. For years, idle sidewalk soothsayers have ventured that we’ll learn a lot about Portland’s future by who ends up with this coveted spot. Lenny Doon is the retail store (with fashions included) for the hemp-derived, CBD supplier. You must be 21 years or older to enter their website. “The cannabis industry is where we’ve seen the most growth in our commercial real estate,” Hatcher says. “Once federally reserved banks and national institutions start accepting money from cannabis, we’re going to see big changes. We’re just starting to see people take advantage of the opportunities surrounding the cannabis industry.”

The Stars Look Down

Reesa Wood, owner of Swamp Witch Apothecary, doesn’t foresee the future with a crystal ball. Instead, she knows what will make Portland tick through astrological charts and a tarot reading. “I’ve just compared Portland’s astrological birth chart to 2030. There’s some stuff indicating conflicts between leadership and economic issues. Debt came up a lot. But the biggest thing to show up was feminine leadership. One of the charts implies women will gain power, but be out of touch. Perhaps they’ll forget where they came from or won’t look out for their communities.”

How does the future look for poverty in Portland? Wood draws the Queen of Pentacles. “This is an extremely abundant card. I don’t tend to predict this optimistically. It definitely suggests that poor people, the homeless in Portland, will be in a much better position in 2030 than now.”

“The theme for 2020 is truth and rebuilding through destruction,” Sarabelle says. “I’m not saying there’s going to be an earthquake or anything, just more abundance, co-opting, and a lot of inspired people interested in the long-term fate of Portland. Because life in Maine,” however the cards fall, “is the way life should be.”