Description
Stroudwater Commons is a for-sale condominium campus under construction at 1 Firefly Street in Portland, Maine. The site covers about four acres off Congress Street. The campus will have 13 buildings of 10 condominiums each, for 130 one-, two- and three-bedroom condos, plus 26 accessory dwelling units (ADUs), for 156 homes in all. The buildings are all-electric. They are designed with efficiency in mind, to limit energy loss while maximizing the housing on the site. GreenMars Real Estate Services is leading the project. Sitework is underway, with foundations next.
The campus includes a mix of affordability levels. In exchange for a density bonus, 78 of the 156 homes are deed-restricted for 30 years: 39 at 80% of area median income (AMI) and 39 at 100% AMI. Each building also has two ADUs. The ADUs are inside the condo buildings, on the ground level beneath the condo units. Under Portland’s ADU rules, an ADU does not have to be next to the condo it is paired with or on the same floor. That flexibility is what makes this layout work.
Before LD 2003, the site was zoned R-2 for single-family homes only. City planning staff wrote that it “would have been limited to a maximum of 17 single-family homes.” Maine enacted LD 2003 in April 2022, and Portland adopted it in December 2023. Two pieces did the work on this site: up to four units by right on a residential lot, and a 2.5× density bonus for affordable housing (Portland’s version gives the full 2.5× when 50 to 74 percent of the units are affordable). That took each lot from one home to four by right, and to ten with the bonus.
GreenMars’s first application, in July 2024, was ten lots with a ten-unit building on each — 100 homes, already under the LD 2003 rules. Portland’s ReCode, adopted in late 2024, turned R-2 into RN-1 and added Conservation Residential Development, which allows smaller lots in exchange for preserving open space. That let the site go from ten lots to thirteen. At ten condominiums per lot, that is 130 condominiums. With two ADUs per building, the total is 156 homes, or about 39 units per acre.
What makes Stroudwater Commons notable is how far the reforms moved one site. On a per-lot basis the change was tenfold. Across the site, the plan went from 17 possible homes to 156. GreenMars believes Stroudwater Commons is one of the first projects in Maine to use the full LD 2003 density provisions.
What successes and impact will this project have?
Stroudwater Commons adds 156 for-sale homes in Portland, and half of them are deed-restricted at 80% and 100% AMI for 30 years. It shows what LD 2003 can produce when a city builds on it. Portland applied the density increases citywide instead of limiting them to a few zones, and it wrote ADU rules flexible enough to work inside multifamily buildings as well as in backyards.
The ADUs give buyers more options. An ADU can be a rental, a guest suite or a home office, and for first-time buyers it can offer a path into ownership. GreenMars’s founders started out with a small multifamily building in Portland.
What challenges did you overcome in this project?
The site itself is difficult. About half of it (2.12 acres) is wetland and steep slope down to the Stroudwater River corridor. GreenMars estimates a realistic single-family build-out would have been only 7 to 12 homes. The 13 buildings sit on the buildable half, and even there the layout has to work with steep grades and includes a large retaining wall.
The project was also one of the first tests of the new policy. The first application, for 100 homes, was filed in July 2024 under LD 2003, before ReCode was adopted. Once ReCode added Conservation Residential Development, the site could hold thirteen lots instead of ten. GreenMars and the City of Portland had to work together to determine how the city would implement ReCode. GreenMars is grateful to the city for its willingness to work through those questions.
About GreenMars
GreenMars Real Estate Services Inc. is a fully integrated real estate company that delivers complex housing, mixed-use and commercial projects from concept through long-term operation. Its platform covers site selection and acquisition, underwriting and valuation, land-use approvals and permitting, design and engineering, construction, commercial brokerage, leasing and property management. Headquartered in Portland, Maine, GreenMars’ portfolio includes Nasson in the Pines, Stroudwater Commons, Wilbur’s Woods and Cape Commons — projects that reflect its mission to expand housing supply, return underused properties to productive use and build strong communities in Maine and beyond. Learn more at greenmars.com.