The University of Maine System (UMS) and the University of Southern Maine (USM) in the USA has selected a preferred bidder for building of a Career/Student Center, residence hall and new campus green on the Portland campus project. The preferred bidder is Capstone Development Partners. Capstone Development Partners is a student housing real estate development company exclusively focused on working with colleges and universities in public-private partnerships.

Works will begin as soon as the University of Maine System procurement process is completed and Board of Trustees' approval has been granted. USM will be deploying bond monies passed by Maine voters last year to construct the Career/Student Center. The University's Career and Employment Hub will anchor the state-of-the-art Center, with dining services, lounges, meeting space and student organizational offices also located there.

The new residence hall, the first-ever on USM's Portland campus, will be located adjacent to the new Career/Student Center. Providing housing for 550 students, it will be funded through a private-public partnership (P3), with Capstone Development Partners absorbing the costs of construction. Fronting both the Career/Student Center and the residence hall will be a new campus green that will replace a parking lot.

As a university committed to sustainability, the project will move USM forward in achieving its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2040. Capstone's bid includes a proposal that the residence hall is built as Passive House, which would likely make it the largest Passive House residence hall project in New England.

Capstone's proposal also includes constructing the Career/Student Center with cross-laminated lumber. The project will also be one of, if not the largest, project in Maine to use cross-laminated timber (CLT). 

The ground will be broken in May 2020 with the project expected to be completed before the fall of 2022.