Bayside Adapts - Back Cove Pond

Portland, Maine

 

In the coming decades, rising sea levels will pose a serious threat to the integrity and vitality of the Bayside neighborhood of Portland, ME.  Our concept proposes severing the Back Cove from the ocean by means of a dam, which would stabilize water levels and allow Bayside and other neighborhoods to continue to grow. 

 

Back Cove Pond will offer new opportunities for waterfront development and recreation, as well as enhance transportation connections and a rich new ecological regime. New development, in combination with the planned transformation of I-295 from highway to boulevard, will create vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood growth centers.  Bayside will become a neighborhood of waterfront park land, fully connected to nearby Payson and Deering Oaks.  An integrated network of new pedestrian and cycling routes will connect the neighborhood to the rest of the city.  Back Cove Pond will serve vital ecological functions, collecting and naturally treating stormwater from the surrounding urban watershed, providing habitat, and supporting a diversity of species.