Transcription of Jim Brady for the show Maine Vision #156
Dr. Lisa: It’s always a great pleasure to spend more time talking with people that I actually have known tangentially for other reasons. Today’s guest is Jim Brady who I’ve known as the father of girls in Yarmouth who play lacrosse and soccer along with my girls. Today, we’re going to interview him in a very different way. He’s the owner of the Press Hotel which will open in the spring of 2015. Looking down at Exchange Street in the former Portland Press Herald Building.
The new boutique hotel bring new life to the structure while also paying tribute to its history. Thanks so much for coming in and having a conversation with me about this.
Jim: Delighted to be here with you.
Dr. Lisa: Jim, what you’ve done is really interesting because the Press Herald building really was one thing for such a long time and all of us who grew up in this area knew it as just the place where the paper was created. You’ve envisioned it as something completely different. When you walked in there, what was it about the Press Herald building that caused you to understand, “This is what’s going to happen and I can see it.”?
Jim: The Press Herald built that building originally back in 1923 and then did an addition to it in 1948. By the time that I first went in the building, when I returned back here to Maine in 2011, the building had already gone through some demolition on the interior. When I saw the building, it was wide open on the inside. Literally, almost all the walls had been taken out.
It occupies an entire city block. It has windows on all four sides. I just saw the great potential of all this natural light coming into the space as well as a building shape that worked very well for a hotel. Office buildings can be lots of different shapes but hotels typically have a certain given width to them to allow you to have a quarter down the middle with two rooms on either side. This building just so happened to lay out very efficiently as a hotel.
Dr. Lisa: We have had a spate of hotels being built in the lower Old Port area and actually going off towards the East End. Your hotel is located in a very different place.
Jim: It is. We’re at the top of Exchange Street right across the street from City Hall. I think of Exchange Street really as one of the key retail boutique sectors within the Old Port. I really liked the idea that we are really connected to the center of the Old Port and yet we’re a couple of blocks away from the routier bar scene. I feel like we’re steps away, miles apart.
We’re very different than a lot of the product that’s going to be coming on line or is now on line here in the marketplace by being a much more design-focused and oriented boutique hotel but we don’t really have the routy bars right outside but we can walk right down the street and then 50 steps, we’re in front of some great restaurants and really all the boutique shops and activities that exist at the Old Port. Very satisfied with where we are from a geographical location.
Dr. Lisa: The way I’m envisioning your hotel and the word boutique is something very similar to what can be found in Boston and New York and other big cities on the smaller side with a lot of well fought out design features and proximity to things like restaurants. We don’t have a lot of that in Maine and I’m thinking maybe we have maybe one other boutique hotel in perhaps on the West End but this is something new, I think.
Jim: It is and the term boutique is really interesting because there’s not a great definition for it in the hospitality industry. It can really mean a lot of different things. There are boutique hotels that have 400 rooms and there are boutique hotels like I think you’re referencing the place in the West End I think has only eight rooms, so really, the full gamete. What I like to think about when I think about a boutique hotel is something that the developers or the owners have spent a lot of time really focusing on the little design details.
We engaged the designer out of New York who specializes in doing boutique hotels. They’re considered one of the top in the world right now and have been involved in a number of the top boutique hotels in New York and up and down the East Coast. They’re virtually all over the interior furnishings are all customized specifically for that space.
We work together with a number of different Maine artists who are doing local artwork in a lot of the public areas and some in the guest rooms as well. Then there’s also the whole service aspect of it as well. A lot of the hotels in town here in Portland might be considered limited service hotels where they don’t really provide a full service offering or concierge or some of the other things that you might look for. Boutique hotels generally tend to be a little higher on the touch point with our guest.
Dr. Lisa: We are seeing more and more of this type of attention to detail whether it’s service or whether it’s design. [Inaudible 00:40:27] obviously has the Camden Harbor and up in Camden and has also bought a property in the West End recently. Tim Harrington has been doing a lot with the Kennebunk Resort Properties. This is new for Maine. I mean, we’ve always had a hospitality industry but it always seemed to be more campy, more casual. We’re getting people who really want this next level up. Why is that?
Jim: I think the whole hospitality industry not just in Maine but across the country has been changing as well. I think that the idea of really treating yourself to unique experience when you travel has becoming more and more prevalent. I think Maine still has that feeling of being very casual. A lot of top business executives who wear a suite every day come to Maine and are very happy to trout around in their flip flops or their Tevas and wear shorts.
There’s this more casual feeling up here but they still want all the nice amenities and finishes that they would might find at their home or some other place that they visited in Cape Cod or in San Francisco. I think that there is definitely a shift now towards a little higher quality of finish and a more unique experience that you’re able to provide for your guests in the hospitality side.
Dr. Lisa: In your prior life, you spent quite a lot of time travelling for various reasons. You were a sailor for one thing. Also, I believe you worked in finance. You spent a couple of years in Italy. Has this colored your view of how you think hospitality should be offered?
Jim: I think that your past experiences always provide some light towards what you’re thinking about for the future. As you mentioned, my past life I was a professional sailor and have travelled all over the world and raised in some fabulous places and of course, had the opportunity to stay in some beautiful hotels along the way.
I do think that that’s somewhat has shaped my perspective of what a hotel should be and what type of experience that I think a guest might want to have at a hotel. Hopefully, we’re going to try to pull all that together here with the Press Hotel when we open next spring.
Dr. Lisa: It also seems that these experiences because you raised on the Olympic team in 1992 in Barcelona and you also raised in the America’s Cup. These experiences have taught you things like flexibility and teamwork and the ability to overcome obstacles which I believe would all be important if you’re trying to launch a new business in the middle of the Old Port.
Jim: It really is. That’s quite a unique comment because my past by being a sailor, people think, “Well, what skills could potentially transfer from being a professional sailor into being a real estate developer?” In fact, to do well and say about raising, you do have a team of people you oftentimes have a new design or boat that’s being constructed in the shape of sails. All these aspects of almost project management of pulling together a very complex group of people and getting them to reach to a goal.
Real estate development in a lot of ways is very similar. Higher architects and designers and general contractors and a lot of different consultants. Somebody needs to be the leader that pulls that group together and help set the goal for them that they’re going to try to reach. I do really push my team very hard to reach beyond where the comfort zone is. That’s something I did in sailing and something that’s transferred very well into real estate as well.
Dr. Lisa: I’m curious as to why you might choose Maine. You obviously have had the chance to be wherever you wanted and both of my girls have played sports with your two girls. We’ve enjoyed having your family in Yarmouth. What drew you back? Why here?
Jim: I first moved here in 2000 and I moved here because of a real estate opportunity. I was working with the Olympia companies who I had cofounded Olympia with my past sailing partner, Kevin Mahaney who’s a Mainer. He and I were both living down in Connecticut at the time. I went off to go do one more America’s Cup down in Auckland, New Zealand in 1999 and early 2000. Kevin Mahaney came down and stayed with us in Auckland and said, “Portland seems to be doing great. I’ve just inquired this property in Portland. Won’t you come back to Portland, Maine and work with me developing these properties?”
That’s what really brought me here from Connecticut via Auckland, New Zealand to Portland. We loved it here. We bought a house in Yarmouth and settled in and had a great time. In 2008, when things were starting to get a little bit slow, we hadn’t had the crash yet the fall of 2008 but that spring, Kevin Mahaney said, “You know, I think we’ve always talked about you taking a year off. Why don’t you go take a year off? This might not be a bad time to do that.”
We packed up the whole family, moved to Torino, Italy in the summer of 2008 and really enjoyed the fantastic time there in Italy. Ended up staying for three years working on a four seasons hotel and branded residence. Ended up staying longer than anticipated. We thought to ourselves, “After this stent in Italy, where are we going to go? We could move to London. We could move to San Francisco.” Lots of great places and at the end of the day, we said, “You know, we really have a great life back in Portland, Maine. Let’s go back there.” We came back in 2011 and so we’ve been back now almost exactly three years.
Dr. Lisa: How do you think this time in Italy and I guess, obviously I misspoke when I said you’re in finance and it sounds like you are doing real estate development in Italy as well.
Jim: That’s correct, yes.
Dr. Lisa: How do you think that this time in Italy and in other parts of the world that you’ve visited has shaped your daughters and their view of the world?
Jim: I think that’s a great question. It’s really one of the unique experiences that I think we’ve been able to offer our children is to be able to see the world and live in different cultures. I’d look at my two daughters Lyla and Claire and think that they’re so worldly, they’re cultured, they’re very respectful of different people in different ways of life. I think it’s been an amazing experience, something you wouldn’t get at any school but lessons of life.
They’re both very, very mature, very thoughtful. I think that that’s been a great experience, one of the best things we’ve been able to provide for them.
Dr. Lisa: I’ve not spent as much time with Lyla but Claire certainly seems to have settled in to the soccer player and the camaraderie with the kids. I wonder if another thing that you’re able to offer your kids is the ability to just be good with where they are because if you’re always travelling or if you’re in different places living, then you have to find some comfort with whatever the new circumstances.
Jim: I think one of the things that we found is that in this move to Italy, the first weeks when we moved there of course, the kids were homesick. They’re missing their friends and everything was new. Within about two weeks, all of a sudden, boom! A switch went off and they found new friends at the international school in Torino, joined different sports clubs and teams and really just fit in very, very quickly.
A year later, we moved from Torino, Italy to Bologna when I started working in the development company was based in Bologna. We moved several hours away. The kids moved schools from the International School of Torino to the International School of Bologna, had to make all new friends again. We thought, “At this stage, we can move anywhere. The kids are just very, very adaptable. They fit in, make it work, make new friends and just really make it easy for us.”
Dr. Lisa: There seems to be something about that adaptability that shows up a lot in Maine. People are able to have different roles. They’re able to have different jobs. I’ve seen people who are lobstermen and also artists and singers, songwriters and physicians. In Maine, it seems like we’re able to not really have to define ourselves by a specific role. We can be many things. Have you found this to be true?
Jim: I have and I find that with a lot of the people that I’ve worked on the various different projects and find out that they’re an artist on side, were a musician on the side. In fact, I went to an event the other night where somebody playing in the band was one of the kids’ school teachers from Yarmouth. I’m just, “Wow!” I had no idea that he played the guitar. No, I think Maine does have that. I find that the kind of people who live in Maine probably had a choice. They didn’t have to be in Maine but they typically chose Maine as a place that they wanted to be.
They likely weren’t moved here for a job like Atlanta or New York or Los Angeles. They moved to Maine because they wanted the way of life that they could have in Maine to allow them to do the things that they wanted to do and then wanted to figure out how am I actually going to survive and have a career here. I think maybe that’s part of why you have this dual purpose type person up here. They’re fairly unique and very talented and very skilled.
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Dr. Lisa: I also think that Maine allows people to have a voice and I was thinking about Kevin Mahaney and the times that I have met him at Inn by the Sea. The fact that he brought in to the Inn by the Sea this whole vegan aspect of eating because he became interested in eating that way. I think it’s interesting that you can explore something in Maine, you can connect with people in Maine and it’s small enough so that you can I guess grow something that works well for you and might connect with other people as well.
Jim: No, I agree. I think that Portland, we all think in Maine is such this big city but really it’s a fairly small city. It’s a big town and it does give you chance to really make a difference. If you want to make a difference here, you can do it. If you decided to do that in New York City, that might be a pretty tough road to hoe. If you’ve got a passion about something, you can really put a lot of effort and energy into it and really make a difference here in Portland and in Maine. I think that’s one of the things that’s unique here.
Dr. Lisa: When the Press Hotel opens in I believe it’s April of 2015, is that your targeted?
Jim: Our target for April 2015, correct.
Dr. Lisa: You’re hoping to attract what sort of person?
Jim: Anybody that wants to stay there quite honestly. We think it’s attracting a type of traveler who’s looking for unique experience. If you’re looking to just pop in for going at midnight before you get your 6:00 flight out the next morning, that’s probably not the type of person that’s going to want to come and experience the Press Hotel. They might stay out at the airport for example.
Somebody who really wants to come and experience the food, scene that Portland has to offer, all the wonderful galleries and art that exist here in the Portland Museum of Art and walking around to the boutiques and the Waterfront and getting lobster rolls. That’s the kind of person that I think we’re going to attract. Somebody who really wants to experience Portland for what Portland has to offer.
Dr. Lisa: Is this some part of a grander scheme for you? Do you have bigger dreams, higher hopes? I’ve heard some rumors but I’m not really certain and I’m wondering what you might say about that.
Jim: When I moved back from Italy, I had the opportunity to look at a number of different things. I really decided that I wanted to really stay in Maine and not be jumping on a plane on a Monday morning and back on a Friday night. I really wanted to focus on doing things here in Portland. The hotel has been the first part of that project. I am involved in some other real estate developments and opportunities here in a city.
I’m very bullish on Portland. I think things are going to continue to go well for the city here. I think Portland’s really becoming discovered more and more the fact that all these new hotels coming to town and the fact that they’re full this summer as they should be in the summer is just proof that people want to come and visit Maine and they really haven’t had that opportunity before.
I’d like to see lots of things happen here. I just see lots of opportunity for Portland. I’m involved with another project here down in the Eastern Waterfront with a group of other partners and investors that we acquired the Portland Company Complex or as some people think of as Portland Yacht Services Site about a year ago. Working through an approval process with that site so that we ultimately could develop a world-class development in that location.
Dr. Lisa: You’ll be heading back to your roots with regard to the yachting aspect of things.
Jim: Exactly.
Dr. Lisa: Going back down to the water.
Jim: Back to the water.
Dr. Lisa: This is so exciting for me. I mean, I moved to Maine in 1977 with my family. My family is from Maine. To have seen the moving and the shifting and the people coming in and the new energy and inviting, I mean, I worked in the tourism industry when I was in high school. It’s really great to see that we’re capitalizing on what already exist around us. I give you a lot of credit for the work that you’re doing.
Jim: Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Bringing the Press Hotel to Portland. I can’t wait to see what happens down on the Waterfront. This is good stuff.
Jim: It really is. I mean, that’s an amazing site down there. It actually abuts of number of other amazing sites. Even though the Ocean Gateway Garage was developed as part of a plan that never was finished with that site just across the street from the Ocean Gateway Garage, there are a number of other sites between India Street and the Portland Company Complex that all have a lot of development opportunity available to them.
Of course, the big infrastructure improvement there was the Ocean Gateway Cruise Ship Terminal that was done a number of years ago. That really started to set the tone for what could become part of a great working Waterfront area and on-land developments to support that.
Dr. Lisa: Jim, I appreciate you’re coming in and talking to us today. People who want to learn more about the Press Hotel can read Old Port Magazine and also go online and read the article that was written about you and the Press Hotel. We look forward to the hotel being opened in April of 2015. We’ve been speaking with Jim Brady who is a longtime hotel developer and Olympic silver medal winner in yachting who specializes in recycling historic commercial buildings and many, many other things. Thanks so much for coming in.
Jim: Thank you. It’s my pleasure.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 156, Maine Vision. Our guests have included Senate President Justin Alfond and Jim Brady. For more information on our guests, read Old Port Magazine and for extended interviews, visit doctorlisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes.
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