Tom Watson is a developer that’s stuck with Portland through thick and thin

By Peter Van Allen, MaineBiz

Developer Tom Watson, principal of Port Property, has a total of 2,000 housing units in greater Portland and Wilmington, N.C., and another 2,000 in the construction or planning stages. Maine is in a housing crunch and there’s a need for housing in both the affordable and market-rate categories.

Even as Portland adoption of the Green New Deal, rent control measures and exclusionary zoning have sent other developers running for less-regulated cities, Watson and his team have vowed to stick with Portland. In the past year, it continued to acquire buildings and a parking garage in Portland, and the company is winding up construction of the 171-unit Armature apartment building in the Bayside neighborhood — where Port Property has told the city it expects to build another 800 units in coming years.

Mainebiz: I believe you moved here from Massachusetts, first coming up in 1993. What attracted you to Portland at that time?

Tom Watson: I was an ultimate frisbee player and I came up to play in a game at Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth. The Portland team took me out for beers afterwards to Gritty’s. The beer, the frisbee, the people, the architecture, all stupendous. I knew I was home here in Portland.

Read the full interview.