 This is our 53rd annual meeting. This is also our meeting where we're going to announce places in peril. And for those of you who aren't familiar with the program, you'll learn more about it from Hilary Basset, our executive director later on. This is also the first time we've held our annual meeting in South Portland. As you know, greater Portland landmarks doesn't mean the great landmarks of the city of Portland. It means greater Portland and all of the landmarks, great and small, and that contribute to the historic fabric of our great community. I also want to thank our few city officials here. We want to thank you for coming and for supporting this project. We have some special people to recognize before we get into a very brief annual business meeting. After that, then we'll announce our places in peril, a list which will be of great interest, I think, to all of you. I want to invite Hilary Basset, the executive director, to join us and to recognize those people. Thank you. We get to do all kinds of fun things in the nonprofit sector. So thank you, Jane. And can everybody hear me? Thank you very much. So my name is Hilary Basset. I'm the executive director of Greater Portland Landmarks. And I'm so happy to see all of you here today. And before we start, I'd like to thank our hosts, Riverview Martial Arts, and Drew Altripaldi, who's been incredible, letting us in. The Rusty Lantern Market is our caterer, and they've been fabulous. They're downstairs. And I also want to thank Ed Gardner of Ocean Gate Realty, who is the sponsor for tonight's event. Thank you, Ed. We are here to celebrate the adaptive reuse and preservation of the former Maine National Guard Armory built in 1941, which was on one of our first lists of places in peril back in 2012. This building represents a major success story for local preservation. The armory was seriously in jeopardy as a vacant structure after many years of deferred maintenance and vacancy. When we listed it in places in peril, the city of South Portland was interested in what it might explore for preservation options as it considered the sale of the building. As part of the sale, the city of South Portland placed a preservation easement on the facade of the building to protect the architectural details when the building was purchased by priority real estate of Topson. As you can see, priority real estate has done a wonderful job in preserving the armory, including its decorative military-inspired details. And if you didn't see the wonderful writeup that was handed out at the beginning of the meeting about the story of armories, and this armory, I hope you'll have a chance to take a look at it. One of the fun discoveries is that the building was built as part of the W. Works Progress Administration, which was a work created in the New Deal era. So it's a really great story behind it. Here in this studio, you can see some fun details about the building, which you never would have seen before. And a little bit later, Drew is going to tell you a little bit about what inspired him to be here. But there's some neat framing details that are still part of the ceiling, that are still here. They're painted in black. And then you also probably noticed that the lettering in the lobby area, which is the original lettering from the front of the building. So I'd like to, on behalf of Greater Portland Landmarks, present several awards tonight to the developer and the tenants of the building. But first of all, I'd like to ask Jim Howard and David Latulip to come forward and anyone else who was involved with Priority Real Estate to thank you and recognize you with a certificate for the excellent work you did in preserving this building. We were talking earlier, it's not always easy to do these jobs, but you've done a fabulous job. And I'd like to thank you very much for the excellent work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. OK. And we have a certificate for Jim. And then I also brought an extra one for David, because I know you were on the job. And all of you, thank you so much for this excellent project. Thank you. So I appreciate it. I just do want to say that we wanted your David over the lecture credit, because he came to my office on an afternoon and said, I think I found a site in South Portland to build a gas station. Really, where was that? It was a long one. I said, great, we can tear that down. Ooh. We can put it there. It's a great location. It's a great site. There's no other convenience stores around. I said, let's do that. He goes, come on, we're going to use it. He said, no, we're not. He came back a month later. A month later. A month later. A month later. Six months later, he convinced me that we should take this project on and do this. So I get David a lot of credit. Thank you. Thank you. Great. The city of South Portland worked great with us. I don't know if anyone's here. Thank you very much. All of our contractors, of course our customers, Drew, who you'll hear from tonight. We've got more enthusiasm than all of us combined. John Cook, who runs Rusty's Market downstairs, for doing the project with us. And my partner here, Chris, who helped fund the project for us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Great. I also would like to recognize the Riverview Martial Arts, Drew Altripaldi, who is here. And I think Jim says it right. Drew is super enthusiastic. And it's so generous of you to let us use the space tonight. So I wanted to thank you and have a certificate. Would you like to say a few words? You probably don't need the microphone. Welcome. I'm super excited to have you all here. And as I said, I'm very excited about this project. We signed on early, early May, I believe. And the second we set foot here, we knew it's where we wanted to be. For those of you who don't know, we've been in the military carrier since the early 90s. We had a small office building over by the Rose Garden. We've always loved this area. And every single day, we've traveled back and forth this building. And you're like, oh, I'd so love to be there sometime. But as it got renovated a few times, when people came in, they're like, oh, it's such a big building. We'd love to be there. But no way would everybody believe that. So since the early 90s, we've been looking at this building being like, oh, I'd really love to be here. One night, laying on the internet, it was like 12.30 at night. So we looked at the building and we found it. And right underneath the building we were looking at was the proposal for this building. And all it was was a little, if you've seen it, it was a little uncolorized, line drawing of what Jim and Priority thought it might look like. And I was like, oh, I'm so in. So the next time I harassed our real estate agent, contact his real estate agent, I was like, I need to see it. And they're like, hey, I'll be in a couple of weeks. And they're like, no, we can't. So we walked through this place. It was dark and very scary. We're going to jump that day. From the first day, I was like, I love this building. I used to be a general contractor before I started the review. I was like, there's so much potential. And this was before anything was demoed. So we worked hard for the next month with Jim and the team of Priority. And it was just from day one, it was a match made, kind of pretty much made for each other. Our vision and Jim's vision and the team of Priority, we were kind of just matched from the beginning. We wanted to have a place that brought the community to here and a place where families would exist and would be able to utilize the nature that's all around us right here. And they made our dreams possible by trying to help us do this. And now we've been in here for eight months. So eight, nine months. And every single day, there's kids coming in. And they're like, you know, every single day there's kids and moms and dads and grandmoms and everyone in this building. And John downstairs, all of our staff loves his coffee. You know, it's just kind of a great feel. We've had summer camp here this year for the first time. Usually our summer camps are in Thompson. We bus up to that location. And we hosted it in South Portland for the first time since we began. So we had kids up back running around learning things, taking fields here up to some of the beach and bringing their beach findings back for the lobby and to the store. So it's really been a great experience. And for everyone involved in making this happen, we just wanted to say thank you. And it's, I think, why we liked it so much was the historic reuse of this building. And I was here all summer long, every single day. Her accent is the form that was about to complete this project. But even the foremen and the construction workers knew the significance of what they were doing and it was amazing. They did everything right down to, I mean, my new detail with the class and quality. Some of the features that you may or may not know, the glass block, the last blocks are original. All the roof framing is original. The, of course, the letters were able to save. If you get a chance, they were able to repurpose the tower for us to have a two-story storage room for our stuff. So it's right through the kitchen. You're welcome to go back through there. And we really try to make sure that these beams are all original. All the steel beams are in here, which were a great find for us, as you can see, with our heavy bags. But they were all made inside of the building when they demoed it. So thank you all for being a part of being here today. We welcome you to Riverview and thank the team for making it happen. Thank you. And then, finally, I wanted to recognize the convenience store downstairs, the Rusty Lantern. And I have to say this summer, I've been cruising through South Portland and checking out the gas station and went in the convenience store. And it's fantastic. It's one of the nicest convenience stores I've ever been in, and the food is great. And the catering tonight was provided by Rusty Lantern. So I'd like to recognize John Koch and his team from Rusty Lantern. Thank you. Thank you for being... It's so important to have good tenants in a project like this. This is part of the equation that makes preservation possible. And so we're very, very pleased to recognize you two for being in the building. Great. Thank you so much. Great. Thanks a lot. And then also part of our recognition today, I just want to give one giant round of applause for this team. They are so fabulous in saving the building. And then one further note we have is we have several trustees who have served landmarks now for three terms. So that's three-year term. So that's nine years and eight and nine years. So that's an incredible commitment of time, energy, talent, effort, thinking, all the great things you need in board members. And so two are here this evening and I just want to make sure that they... We have a chance to recognize them. One is... who's sitting in the front row here, Lori, who has been one of our wonderful, wonderful trustees. She has been a real advocate for education and outreach. But not just that. I mean, she helped write our incredible student workbook. She has done every single job you can do in a nonprofit, you know, fundraising, being a volunteer, sharing up committee meetings, stuffing envelopes, all the things you do on board in a small nonprofit. Recognize Ruth, if you would stand up. Sorry, everybody can stand up. Yeah. And... Thank you. We have a certificate for Ruth. I have to say, it's been a pleasure. We've had our ups and downs, but we have persevered as a committee. And so it's really been an honor to be involved in this wonderful organization. Thank you. There's another trustee who is also retiring from the board this year, Dave Robinson. I don't know if Dave is still here. Yay, Dave! And Dave also has been amazing. Dave came on as a representative of the business community, and at the beginning he said, well, I don't know about this landmarks, but I want to learn more. As usual, Dave just jumping in with both feet, becoming super involved, helping us. We bought a major building. We have tenants. Dave has helped us navigate all of that. He just helped us redo our entire bylaws and whole governance structure, which was huge, resetting the whole setup for our board. And anything, just like Ruth, anything you ask of Dave, is helpful just being part of the team of landmarks. So I just wanted to thank you as well. And Dave, I'm reiterated that it's been an honor and a pleasure, and it's great to leave an organization when you know that it's stronger than when you came in. Now, this landmarks is such a strong organization that it has been very proud to be on board. Thank you. Thank you. There you have it. Thank you. And then another person who's been amazing but couldn't be here tonight is Nick Noyes. Many of you know Nick, who is the librarian at Maine Historical Society. And also someone who gives of his time, talent, commitment, energy. He's helped us with just about everything we've asked him to do on the building, education, and most recently we've done a major kind of evaluation of our book holdings in our library. And so Nick and two other library professionals went through our entire collection and now we've consolidated to a core collection. So Nick has been amazing and also as a long standing Portland resident helping us tie to the whole history of Portland in a very personal way. So unfortunately can't be here, but let's give a round of applause for Nick. Thank you. Okay. So now I'm going to turn it back to Jane to run the annual meeting very quickly. I'm back. Okay. So now we're going to start the business portion of our annual meeting. This is our annual meeting. And just to clarify, I know we have a lot of visitors and guests and supporters who may not be members of the organization. First of all, I would thank you so much for coming and encourage you to think about joining the organization, becoming a member. But during when votes are called for during this portion of the meeting, only the membership should vote and we would appreciate your voting. So I'm just going to tell you briefly that landmarks finished up with an exciting year with a season at the Portland Observatory that brought another record-breaking number of visitors and a spring fundraising event that brought records in support of our educational programming. This year, June 30th on a positive and in a strong financial position. We have three quick business items before commencing the places in peril. First, we need to approve the minutes from our last annual meeting which can be found in your program. So I would ask the membership if they have not already to take a quick look at those minutes or if they've not already read them. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Is there a second? All in favor? Thank you very much. Any opposed? Any abstentions? It passes unanimously. Thank you so much. And now I'm going to turn it over to Bruce Moyer our treasurer who will give you a brief financial report. Some organizations they say there's going to be a brief financial report so I've been trying to retrieve some things but as Jane already mentioned the plan marks have a very, very good year following the year of rebuilding but this past year it was very nice. If you look in your report I'll just sort of highlight where you want to go to see some of the details. Page 6 of the annual report we present to you is a quick we have a common experience from the statement of activities and then we also we have the numbers and it's very much a pie chart. So in the visual we've got the pie chart, we have the numbers and then the balance sheet is also there. Bottom line is the organization we finished the year in the black and also you'll notice the net income of $12,000 and change I'll sound like a financial very briefly that is after depreciation of $50,000 so median cash we can even obviously much better than that. It was also had very nicely from the year before, a year before we did show a loss and so because quite frankly all the incredible efforts of Hillary and her staff and her team it's been quite a year. You'll notice all the major areas with a pie chart you'll see philanthropy programs rental income and then investments essentially everything was ahead of last year philanthropy was up nicely thank you everyone and also for everything you've done and also thank you for everything you will continue to do and you've heard already and you'll hear more the observatory has been doing very very well what it has become it's very much a destination now lots of people are coming but also it's also a trick not only to the observatory itself but what less of a team are doing and we'll come back so this is a good thing the building, the rents ahead and god bless investment at least for the moment that's still performing well too so that's the part I guess we have at least control over but all in all very healthy here and I think we have good momentum for continuing because good landmarch right now has incredible staff and lots of phenomenally very good strong programming out your way because the old saying goes all it takes is money we're fortune and the observatory provides a nice source of earned income which is unusual for a lot of organizations like us but it doesn't do the whole thing but at least it is a big help so between that and continued philanthropic support I think we will continue to be well positioned so if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to entertain them now if you want to chat with me after the meeting I'd be happy to do that as well anybody have any questions okay thank you I'm literally making a cameo pair so I'm not putting on the headset I'm having like Carol Tye chair of the governance committee to present the slate of nominees for 2017-2018 thank you trustee nominees to a three-year term include and I'd ask people to stand please when you hear your name William Bill Hall Sally Oldham Rhoda Rentschner and Bruce Rulac and to a second three-year term already standing Jane Banta I have a motion to approve the slate of nominees second all in favor thank you any opposed very nice welcome may I have a motion to approve the slate of advisory trustees which is in the program so moved thank you all in favor second yeah thank you any opposed thank you very much at this point in the meeting I've been up to any new business does anyone have any new business they would like to bring before the officers at this point in time therefore oh thank you go ahead Elaine could we hear from the representative from South Portland who's here about their role in building motivation is there someone here from South Portland who could could speak to that oh oh Adrian we were on the committee together you certainly can speak to that about the role of oh boy I'm all wired up here thank you thank you very much I'm Adrian Dowling I'm the chairman of the South Portland Arts and Historic Preservation Committee we have some current and former members of that committee here Jane was with us for quite some time we also have Doreen Gay, Doreen are you back there and do we have any other committee members here Alessa yes oh my gosh I can't believe I forgot Alessa yeah and I also want to say thank you to our two former committee chairman Jessica Squire-Ruthier and Scott Whitaker who did an incredible amount of work with this committee from the very beginning when the committee first started and especially in regards to our work with priority real estate group in redeveloping this property and I certainly want to thank David Latulip who came to several of our meetings he was fantastic to work with he listened to our concerns we had a great dialogue we collaborated and they got about 90% of what they wanted we got about 90% of what we wanted and I think that shows that we worked well together and we can be 100% proud of the outcome of that thank you very much thank you so much so that's also for those of you who may not know that is part of the work of great important landmarks to reach out to the community of South Portland not only to note that this army this building we were in was a place in peril in the way because we have not done due diligence in doing historic surveys noting what our historic properties are and beginning the process of real preservation in this particular city and the city council took note of that thanks to great important landmarks and they formed this committee that they came to South sharing so it's really the South Portland arts and historic preservation okay so thank you at this point I would like to call for a motion to adjourn this annual meeting so second all in favor there you go okay thank you so much for attending the annual meeting it's really important it's great to see all the new friends and now the highlight of the show certainly heard a great story about why this program exists since it's coming together so Hillary will take you to that so I get to wear the fancy microphone can you hear me okay so we are now going to be announcing our fourth actually by annual every other year we do a places in peril announcement and so this one the first one was in 2012 the second 2013 and then we've skipped we've done an alternate year since then and the purpose of this program is to build community awareness about the significance of these properties to advocate for their preservation and in some case adaptive reuse so that they can still play a vital role in our community and I think again this is a great example of such a property we also want to provide advice, convene people and identify resources to preserve protect and rehabilitate these properties so I'm going to start with the first of our 2017 places in peril hopefully here we go and it is the Portland motor sales building many of you have noticed this building over on marginal way as you're driving along 295 it's one of Portland's most significant mid century modern buildings with its iconic folded roof it was built for one of the largest Ford dealers of the time and they were creating a signature look with that building so the property threat is that the property is vulnerable to redevelopment in an area that is rapidly changing and growing this style is typically undervalued and there are no protections in place I'm going to show you some more details so here's some more details of the building some opportunities exist here to seek a local landmark designation for the building to encourage future development that celebrates mid century to encourage national register listing which would make tax credits available to rehabilitate the project and also the recognition of a mid century resource will build awareness of the importance of mid century architecture in the greater Portland area our second listing is the Seth Thomas clock from 1925 along Congress street and you may have noticed this it's right across from tandem coffee for you coffee drinkers this clock was installed in 1925 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hay and Peabody funeral home which occupied the Mellon bolster house on that location it is the only pole mounted street clock built by the nationally renowned Seth Thomas company in the city of Portland the clock is in serious disrepair because of lack of maintenance over many years and it requires specialized skills to fix the clock and its original mechanism it's the only clock or one of a very few pole mounted clocks that contain both an electric and a gravity driven mechanism to keep it going and there are also high costs for its restoration the opportunity exists here because the owners are very interested in restoring the clock there's an opportunity to raise awareness of its importance and also there's an opportunity to partner with a fiscal agent to encourage private contributions to a project that will benefit everybody in the city of Portland and here's some details of some of the mechanisms and the condition they're in and another way to protect it would be through a efficient easement that requires maintenance of the clock it is identified as a contributing feature to the building so they can't sell it on ebay but you can't make them make it work again so I think there's a great opportunity with this listing a third listing affects the city of south Portland where we are see Adrienne is aware of this project this is the Mahoney school of 1923 and 24 it's a building that is very noticeable building as you go into the city of south Portland it is designed by the noted main architectural firm of Miller and Mayo and is a showcase for the bozart style of architecture which was preferred for civic buildings the threat is that the city of south Portland school district has received state funding to renovate or replace the school or consolidate its two middle schools or find another location for a new school depending on the consultant's recommendations the future of the building is at risk no protections exist to prevent demolition or to ensure its rehabilitation and or to guide future additions or changes now the opportunities there are several to stay as a school which is always the best because the building was built as a school or to find a compatible use that celebrates the building and its architecture it is already eligible for the national register so it would have access to historic tax credits for rehabilitation for a compatible use so our fourth listing is the peaks island amusement district of 1880 to 1930 on island avenue on peaks island and many of you may not be aware that peaks island in the late 19th century was famous and known as the coney island of main greenwood gardens which is now where the lions club facilities on that spot was a peaks island shoreland amusement park and these are some fun historic images and there's a few more so the the opportunity is that there's a to document these historic resources on the island and I should say that the threat is they haven't been formally documented and there are no preservation protections for these properties and what we're seeing in the greater Portland area is a high demand for water frontage and also for higher density so those demands those development pressures are impacting the future of this building of these buildings now the opportunity exists to document them to document these to encourage islanders to get involved with the city rezoning process and that is going to be starting up soon so peaks island residents I hope will be part of that there's also an opportunity to work with local historians to educate people about the role of the amusement area and the buildings and also to consider the local historic district in these areas around the island is it so if you get off the boat turn right and go down island avenue and keep walking so and you will notice a number of buildings that have unusual shapes for there's one with kind of a flattened square facade and at the very end there's an area with picnic tables and kind of an entertainment area and then just inland there are a number of smaller houses that are all kind of a neat rose and that's where the cottages that were associated with that entertainment district so it's one of those ones you probably walked down many times and wondered about but this was a very big deal in the late 19th century and early 20th century so the next property is the Dunn Memorial Church which is in Portland it's at the corner of Brentwood and Stevens Avenue 1906 to 1907 the building is architecturally significant because it's designed by a well-known Bangor based architect Victor Hodgins and the building was determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places the problem is that there was improper repair done on the mortar so because of that improper repair it has led to decades of structural problems which is causing the stone veneer to fail and there is an estimated 1.5 million dollars needed to repair the church's clock tower which has now been blocked off by a fence so there's an opportunity here to increase awareness of the church's significance to partner with community groups the church with community groups to build awareness and also to raise funding and also to explore the possibility of a joint venture with a local developer which would result in the preservation of the masonry part of the building number six which is Portland's African American resources historic African American resources on the peninsula from the 19th century now again this is one of those little known parts of our history where there was a very small but very active and thriving community of African American citizens in 19th century Portland there are three areas that we feel are under threat the Newberry Street area near the Abyssinian meeting house and here's the Abyssinian that they're currently doing some work on and you're seeing images of buildings today with the historic images and you can see they're pretty much very similar retaining a lot of their features so the area is Newberry Street near the Abyssinian Lafayette Street which is up Monjoy Hill to the left and that was an area near a livery stable so many African American families lived there and also in the St. John Valley area where Union Station used to be because again many of the African American families were employed at Union Station so these are resources that are not protected they're not documented here and they're in many cases largely retain a lot of their features so there's an opportunity here to get more information to survey, to documents what's there and raise awareness of these resources to expand research of the neighborhoods especially around the Abyssinian where many of the parishioners lived and also to explore small local historic districts which might protect some of these properties and finally the last property we're identifying is the Bowery Beach School which is in Cape Elizabeth built in 1885 altered in 1855 so that's a really significant older building and it's one of the last remaining historic school houses that characterized the one room school houses that were in Cape Elizabeth and greater Portland and unlike many of the others this building is still standing on its original site it has most of its original features and most of its original architecture the threat is that a recent structural assessment show that the building's framing is in need of repair and the current owner which is the Cape Elizabeth Lines Club their mission is to raise money for charitable ventures it's not to raise money to fix their building so they need a way to raise funds the opportunity is to build awareness of the old school to consider additional uses to raise funds such as renting the hall to provide revenues and also to form a friends group much like some of the other properties in Portland where such as Masonic Temple where the friends group is charged with raising money to keep up the building this is our series for this year and I'll show you a few details of the Bowery Beach School we are very excited to be listing these properties a few more this year and we look forward to working with the property owners to help build awareness of these resources to help bring together partnerships to start working toward preservation and to hopefully have a number of future programs in some of our buildings that have been saved through places in peril just building awareness we heard from Paul Drinan today who's ahead of the friends of Fort Gorge is how important it's been to have that awareness and now they're doing studies there's work being done out on the fort there are many programs and kayak trips that go out there but part of that is because the community is becoming more aware of that resource and that's our goal with this program to get people to preservation hasn't stopped there's a lot of resources and a lot of history that's still yet to be preserved so I would like to thank you and ask if you have any questions Julie Larry our a player in the research is here so if you have any specific questions you'd like to ask please feel free to do so I do read out some of the candidates how do you read them out so that's a good question how are the projects selected for places in peril so doing the program every other year we receive about 20 to 25 nominations each time that we've done this not everyone is selected we actually have an anonymous selection committee which we convene includes preservationists architects developers community leaders representatives of non city of portland residents so we try to have perspectives that are beyond our own internal perspectives to select out of those 20 properties ones that will be named again a lot of the decision has to do with timeliness and making sure that we have a range of properties identified from small to large to representing greater portland and also showing the diversity of kinds of projects so that nominations process is opened up every other year formally but informally we learn from our constituents and our work out in the community about these properties that are endangered so the ideas come from a number of sources so that is an excellent question about how do we do it does the peaks island project have multiple property owners question is does the peaks island have multiple property owners and I'm just seeing there's a property about brown resources that all have individual owners so the answer was about 30 different properties all with different owners so when you do these naming of groups such as the entire city of south portland for its historic resources there's a range of numbers of folks you need to work with other questions one last thing I'd like to thank our staff who are amazing, Kate Lewis who's our director of development who orchestrated tonight's event applause I'm going to go to this side of the room Alessa Wiley who she's our manager of education programs and she put together that wonderful information sheet about the building and armories in the greater portland area and also manages the observatory Julie Larry who's our executive she's our director of advocacy director of advocacy and she's incredible because she not only attends numerous committee meetings and city meetings but also does a lot of research and runs our architectural survey program Chloe Martin who's in the front row here and we're actually live streaming this on facebook because we got concerned well first of all we learned about that on peaks island I just want to say peaks island is one of the great sources of energy and ideas but we thought it was important to make it accessible to all our membership who could not be here and this will also be part of the program will be shown on community television and who else am I in hot water for not Lorena yes a total hot water yes Lorena is our development assistant she does all the preparations for the details of tonight's meeting our preservation directory and also make sure that all our donors are acknowledged and recorded and we know where you are who you are and want to keep you happy so anyway we have an incredible team here really want to thank everybody