W.T. Grant Co. and Grant City Stores

Here's another long-gone retailer that was very big in Portland. By the early 70s, they had three stores in Portland; the large Grant's flagship store on Congress Street, a smaller variety style store in the Pine Tree Shopping Center on Brighton Ave, and a huge new Grant City store, complete with a Sears style "Auto Center," anchoring the doomed Northport Plaza on Washington Avenue.

Downtown, Grant's had four full floors, plus a mezzanine, and occupied about 90,000 sq feet. The store hosted a Bradford House Restaurant, a small snack bar (which had very good grilled hotdogs) and sold everything from sewing notions to big appliances. As noted in the grand re-opening ads from 1948, the store also boasted Maine's first escalator:

After years of expansion, Grant's suddenly entered Ch 11 Bankruptcy in the Fall of 1975. They closed most of their stores, retaining the downtown and Northport stores in Portland. After a tough Christmas season, re-branded as the "New Grants," the company was forced into liquidation by their creditors in early 1976. It was the largest retail failure up to that time.

The W.T. Grant failure is now a textbook study for business students about the importance of cashflow versus profit. Though profitable, on paper, almost to the end, Grant's had become over-extended by opening too many locations and extending credit to unworthy applicants. They didn't have enough cash on hand to satisfy their monthly obligations.

In fact, even after liquidation, Grant's realized more than $1 for every dollar owed.

The Grant City in Northport Plaza was ultimately subdivided into a new home for WGAN AM/FM/TV and and Ames Discount Store. The other stores in the plaza were LaVerdiere's Super Drug, a FINAST/Big Buy Supermarket and a Hallmark Shop. Ames closed in 1979 (before their huge expansion and failure,) and the plaza was re-developed as a business park, after forcing LaVerdiere's into a free-standing pod on the property. (Now Rite-Aid.)

The Congress Street location was re-developed into an urban mall, but never grew beyond the first floor, and ultimately failed, along with the rest of Congress Street. (A CVS store remains in a small portion of the space.)

Below are pictures of 510 Congress Street in the 40s, and from the tax assessor's database today...Not very different...The late Porteous, Mitchell & Braun Co. is next door...More about them, later: