In early December 2013, Harborcorp LLC filed plans with the city of Portsmouth depicting a building to be constructed in the North End, also known as the "Northern Tier." The press and the public immediately focused on two elements: (1) that 10 percent of the building will include a Whole Foods store; and (2) that approximately 100 spaces in the attached parking garage will be available to the general public.

In early December 2013, Harborcorp LLC filed plans with the city of Portsmouth depicting a building to be constructed in the North End, also known as the "Northern Tier." The press and the public immediately focused on two elements: (1) that 10 percent of the building will include a Whole Foods store; and (2) that approximately 100 spaces in the attached parking garage will be available to the general public.



Attractive details. Let's look at the rest of the project.



The building will be 60 feet tall, flat roofed, covering three lots located two blocks north of the historic city center. The footprint of the building is like an arm bent at the elbow. The upper arm will run approximately 450 feet along the north side of Deer Street between Maplewood Avenue and Russell Street. The forearm will extend an additional 380 feet along Russell Street across from the Sheraton hotel.



To place this in perspective, the proposed structure's length, footprint and gross floor area are all significantly larger than Portwalk III, the leviathan now under construction on Maplewood between Hanover and Deer Streets. Put another way, Harborcorp's building will be longer than Boston's Prudential Tower is tall. Some citizens lament that the Marriott Residence Inn dwarfs adjacent historic houses on The Hill. Ironically, Harborcorp's proposal dwarfs the Marriott, which runs 190 feet along Deer Street.



The proposed building's height, 60 feet, tests the limits of Portsmouth's zoning ordinance. The site is located in Central Business District B, where building height may not exceed the lesser of 45 feet or 3.5 stories. The zoning ordinance empowers the Historic District Commission to grant a "conditional use permit" allowing a building (or a portion thereof) to rise up to 60 feet in height, but only under exceptional circumstances listed in Section 10.535.13 of the ordinance (viewable on the city's Web site at www.planportsmouth.com/application/ZoningOrd_amended_130915.pdf). The fate of this project thus rests largely in the hands of the Historic District Commission, which also has jurisdiction to disapprove the plans based on their general "scale" and "mass."



The developer has not yet applied to the Historic District Commission for approval. Despite that, the Planning Board has invited the Historic District Commission and the city's Economic Development Commission to participate in a work session on Jan. 9, at 6:30 p.m., in the City Council chamber. According to the Planning Department, "the purpose is to let the three boards see the same plans, discuss issues together and provide early input to the developer."



The "design review" process now being conducted by the Planning Board is a strange creature. It is voluntary and nonbinding, a prelude to a formal application for Planning Board site plan approval. The ostensible purpose is to solicit suggestions from the Planning Board and the public, but the consequences are more momentous. Once a developer submits plans for design review, the project shown in those plans is exempt from any subsequent amendments to the city's land use laws. (That is why some citizens challenged the completeness of the plans at the Planning Board's Dec. 19, 2013, design review hearing and why they intend to press the issue when that hearing resumes on the evening of Jan. 16, 2014.)



Supporters of large buildings in the North End often cite the 1999 Northern Tier Feasibility Study, a project jointly funded by the Sheraton Hotel and the city's Economic Development Commission. They overlook that the City Council, the Planning Board and the Economic Development Commission never adopted the results of the study. They also often ignore the study's explicit assumptions: that structures would not exceed 50 feet in height and that development adjacent to historic neighborhoods (such as The Hill) would "be compatible to this context."



Portsmouth's 2005 Master Plan, which the city did adopt, endorsed one of the study's recommendations: to "integrate" the North End with downtown by extending "pedestrian friendly streets and human scaled architecture into the Northern Tier." Harborcorp's project violates those tenets in two major ways.



First, the overall size of the building is not human scaled. The same criticism applies to some design elements, such as the blank walls of the proposed parking garage facing Maplewood Avenue and Deer Street.



Second, the Deer Street facade will create a long wall separating the upper half of the North End from downtown. The Northern Tier Study envisioned a street or pedestrian pathway connecting the entire North End and the North Mill Pond to downtown via the vector that now includes Vaughan Street, Portwalk Way and the Vaughan Mall. Harborcorp's project would block that route.



Opponents advocate dividing the proposed monolith into two or three structures, each no more than 45 feet tall, separated by pedestrian pathways and perhaps connected by pedestrian bridges. This would be sufficient to house the Whole Foods store, underground parking for that store, the proposed conference center, and most of the proposed parking garage. Such downsizing might force Harborcorp to trim or eliminate other portions of the project, such as the proposed 98-room "boutique hotel" and 14 apartments, which would be no great loss to the city.



Many view the leveling the North End through urban renewal as a tragedy. It will be a double tragedy if redevelopment there sabotages what makes Portsmouth special — its historic character, walkability and human scale.



Jerry Zelin is a Portsmouth resident, lawyer and member of the preservation group Portsmouth Advocates.