The Time and Temperature Building, originally known as the Chapman Building, and officially 477 Congress Street, is a 14-story office building in downtown Portland, Maine. The building is named after a large three-sided four-element eggcrate display screen on the roof that flashes the local time and temperature. It was built in 1924 as a 12-story building, with Maine's first indoor shopping center on its ground floor. It sits next to the 10-story

Fidelity Trust Building The Fidelity Trust Building, also known as Swan Tower, is a commercial Renaissance Revival office building located at 284 Main Street in the Joseph Ellicott Historic District (also called the ''Downtown Historic District'') in downtown Buffalo, ...

; until the 1970s, these buildings were Portland's only skyscrapers. The building, one of Portland's tallest, is visible from miles away, including from

Peaks Island Peaks Island is the most populous island in Casco Bay, Maine, Casco Bay, Maine. It is part of the city of Portland, Maine, Portland and is approximately from downtown. The island is served by Casco Bay Lines and is home to its own elementary s ...

across the harbor, and it has become a

landmark A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or f ...

to Portlanders who depend on it for the sign's time and temperature, but also to find their way into Portland.

Time and temperature sign

The time-and-temperature sign was added to the building in 1964. In the 1970s, the Portland Savings Bank ran a summertime competition to guess when the sign would first register a temperature of . Maine law prohibits flashing messages on signs visible from state highways, but in 1991, the Maine Legislature passed a grandfather clause exemption to allow the Time and Temperature building to use advertising to cover operating costs. A new sign was installed in 1999, which as well as the time and temperature, broadcasts messages consisting of two lines, each with four characters. Advertising messages have included "WMTW NEWS", from television station

WMTW-TV WMTW (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Poland Spring, Maine, United States, serving the Portland area as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside CW affiliate WPXT (channel 51). Both stations share studio ...

, whose studios were located in the building from 1999 until 2015, and "CALL JOE", from advertising lawyer Joe Bornstein. When a snowstorm is severe enough to result in a snow emergency, the sign flashes the words "PARK BAN", to remind people not to park on the street. In 2010, when a malfunction resulted in the sign going dark, around 60 concerned people contacted the building's owners to let them know.

History

The Chapman Building was designed by local architect Herbert W. Rhodes, who also designed the nearby hotel The Eastland. In 1964, Casco Bank, the owner of the building, added two stories, and installed a flashing time-and-temperature sign on the roof. The addition was incongruent with the original style of the building, but a major renovation in the 1980s more naturally integrated it into the lower floors. In 1995, millionaire philanthropist

Elizabeth Noyce Elizabeth Noyce (' Bottomley; October 7, 1930 – September 18, 1996) was an American philanthropist, and former wife of Fairchild Semiconductor general manager and a founder of Intel Corporation, Robert Noyce. Biography Noyce was born Elizabe ...

's Libra Foundation purchased the building. Renovations were completed in 1996, and a new time-and-temperature sign was installed on the roof in 1999. In 2003, the Libra Foundation sold the building to 477 Congress LLC, a subsidiary of

Kalmon Dolgin Kalmon Dolgin (born 1943) is a real estate investor and developer based in New York. He serves as the president of Kalmon Dolgin Affiliates, Inc. and is part of the Dolgin family, which has been acknowledged by Real Estate Weekly for their contribu ...

Affiliates. By 2016, occupancy had dropped to 60%, as lack of maintenance had caused tenants to vacate the building. The building was taken into

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

by Wells Fargo on May 11, 2016. Building ownership passed to

CW Capital Asset Management CW may stand for: Science and technology * centiwatt (cW), one hundredth of a watt * Cω, a programming language * CW complex, a type of topological space * Carrier wave, in radio communications * CodeWarrior, an integrated development environme ...

, a loan servicing company. An inspection in November 2017 by the Portland Fire Department found 19 fire-safety violations. The building was sold at auction for $9.3 million in October 2018 to TT Maine Venture. In 2023, a planned conversion of the building into a hotel was put on hold due to labor shortages.

References

{{reflist Office buildings completed in 1924 Office buildings in Portland, Maine Skyscraper office buildings in Maine 1924 establishments in Maine