A New Day
Can Maine's family beach resort go upscale without losing its honky-tonk soul?
By Colin Woodard, Photography By Carl D. Walsh
There's no missing the Grand Victorian, the condominium hotel Tim Swenson completed last October in Old Orchard Beach. It stands at the town's epicenter, a beachfront lot at the foot of the Pier and across Old Orchard Street from the Palace Playland amusement park. By Old Orchard standards it's enormous: five stories high and 126,000 square feet, with retail shops on the street and 48 luxury condominiums above that have sold for between $300,000 and $500,000 apiece.The twenty-million-dollar complex is the most ambitious development the town has seen in decades.
