Item 105417 - Maine Medical Center parking garage construction, Portland, 1971

Item 105417 - Maine Medical Center parking garage construction, Portland, 1971
Contributed by Maine Historical Society
Item 105417
Maine Medical Center parking garage construction, Portland, 1971
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Construction of a multi-story parking garage for Maine Medical Center on the corner of Gilman and Congress Streets started in 1971. Building crews spent a year creating the infrastructure to support the new construction, installing pipe and conduits, building roads, even changing the topography of the site. A portion of Bramhall Hill was cut away in order to level a lot on which to erect the new parking garage. The earthmoving created a six-story cliff overlooking Congress Street. MMC’s facilities engineers designed a 200-foot-long, 65-foot-high retaining wall as part of an earth retention system.

Before the 1960s, there were no parking garages at the hospital and the plateau behind the complex was used for parking. As the hospital expanded, parking in the neighborhood grew increasingly scarce, so the Bramhall Reservoir was leased and then purchased to alleviate parking issues. For Maine Medical Center employees, there was a parking lot on St. John Street. This stood where the old Union Station was located prior to its demolition as part of the national Urban Renewal Project.

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