The city is looking to sell off more of its prime downtown properties

 

The Thames Street parking lot, which Portland city government is considering selling.

The Thames Street parking lot, which Portland city government is considering selling.

With the real estate market booming and property at a premium, Portland is looking to unload several municipal properties next year, including two prime downtown locations.

The city is already negotiating with a buyer interested in purchasing a roughly 7-acre industrial lot on Riverside Street, according to a memo to the City Council’s Economic Development Committee.

In the memo Economic Development Director Greg Mitchell also suggests that the city sell the 1.5-acre parking lot on Thames Street, near the the Eastern Promenade Trail, and another parking lot between Free, Center and Spring streets.

The proposal to unload these lots comes soon after the city put other valuable properties on the market. In October, the city announced that it would be selling about 5 acres of Bayside property, where the public works offices presently sit. That parcel is being sold at market rate by commercial real estate broker, CBRE The Boulos Co. And the city also recently sold a small lot to CBP2, the company behind the massive 58 Fore St. development, for $400,000.

The Thames Street parking lot sits across from the water and near the site of that proposed $250-million development, which would transform 10 acres of former railroad foundry into a six-block of of housing, shops, restaurants, hotel rooms and marina slips.

“It’s a valuable piece of property and some of us think that it should be used as something other than a parking lot,” said City Councilor David Brenerman.