South Portland weighs purchase of Main Street Walgreens for police station amid broader public safety bond plan

City shifts focus to a commercial property as Mahoney redevelopment costs and scheduling remain unresolved

South Portland officials are pursuing the acquisition of a Walgreens property at 279 Main St. as a potential location for a new police station, positioning the move as a parallel path while longer-term plans involving the former Mahoney Middle School remain constrained by cost and scope decisions.

City leaders have indicated that the purchase process is being timed with a proposed public vote in the fall on financing for public safety facilities. In recent deliberations, the City Council recommended packaging the police and fire station projects into a single public safety bond. A city facilities director told councilors that the combined public safety work would cost taxpayers close to $87 million.

How Mahoney plans evolved and why costs became a central issue

The former Mahoney Middle School site has been the subject of multi-year planning around consolidating city services and addressing aging municipal buildings. Earlier proposals envisioned renovating the Mahoney building to house multiple city departments, adding library space, and constructing a police station on the property. Over time, project estimates expanded substantially as planners evaluated multiple components and sequencing options.

Concept design materials presented in late 2025 showed Mahoney-related development scenarios with police and fire facilities and major site work, with total project figures reaching roughly $193.8 million in one option when construction, soft costs, and escalation were combined. The same materials also outlined a range of schedules, with several approaches extending beyond three years depending on whether design and construction phases run in parallel or are fully staggered.

What the Walgreens site offers—and what still must be decided

The Walgreens property is a developed commercial parcel at Cash Corner. Real estate marketing information for the site has described it as a 2.9-acre property with an existing roughly 10,578-square-foot building and additional excess land, framing the location as either a continued retail tenancy or a redevelopment opportunity.

For the city, a retail building can offer a different starting point than new construction on a constrained municipal site: existing parking, visibility, and established access points. However, converting a pharmacy building into a police station typically requires substantial interior reconstruction, specialized secure areas, evidence storage, detainee processing space, and upgraded building systems—details that would be addressed through design, code review, and cost estimating after a site is secured and a program is finalized.

Timeline and governance steps ahead

• Property acquisition: negotiations and due diligence before any purchase can proceed.

• Project definition: confirmation of space needs, operational requirements, and whether fire facilities are included in the same bond package.

• Voter decision: a referendum anticipated in the fall to authorize borrowing for the public safety facilities plan.

With the Mahoney redevelopment’s overall scope still under review, the Walgreens acquisition effort represents a separate track aimed at securing a feasible police-station site while broader city-facilities decisions continue.

City officials have framed the next phase as balancing facility deficiencies, taxpayer impacts, and project sequencing—decisions that will determine whether South Portland builds on a municipal campus plan, pivots to a commercial conversion, or combines elements of both.