Congress Street in Portland is About To Become a Complete Mess

Maine Medical Center is ready to begin construction on a $512 million expansion that will last until 2023. When it's all done, Maine's largest hospital will have added 28 new private patient rooms, 19 procedure rooms and an additional 225 spaces for patient and visitor parking. All that work will cause some traffic headaches for Portland drivers.

Starting Monday, May 7, a portion of lower Congress Street in front of the Maine Med parking garage will be closed for eight weeks as a massive crane will take up the street to add more floors to the garage. Congress will be closed between Forest Street and Weymouth Street with traffic being rerouted to St. John Street, Park Avenue and Weymouth Street. Wescott Street will also be closed and will become a temporary two-way street during construction.

Confused? Here's a handy map.

The crane is expected be removed and traffic returned to normal around June 29.

If you want to keep up on the construction progress and any other closings and detours, there's a button for that.