Whats up with the out-of-place, blue industrial building just east of the tram landing?
That’s Zidell Marine Corp., a barge-building operation owned by Portland’s Zidell family, which has had a presence on the waterfront since the early 20th century. Zidell once dismantled old World War II Navy ships below the Ross Island Bridge but now mostly builds barges. The Zidells have said they plan to join the South Waterfront redevelopment wave, but they’ve fought with the city and the waterfront’s first developers for years over their share of tram costs and other amenities. South of Zidell and the tram landing, the tan-trimmed matching towers of the Meriwether condominiums show what much of the area could look like a decade from now: filled with condos with stunning views up and down the river. Just west of the Meriwether, which drew its first residents last April, the elliptically shaped John Ross condos show how high South Waterfront buildings can rise: up to 325 feet tall, or 31 stories, in the case of the John Ross. The city requires a narrow width on buildings of that heig
