Knightville/Mill Creek is about to undergo a documentation of its historic features. The project is expected to better position the neighborhood for general revitalization.

South Portland Planning Director Tex Haeuser said he expects to sign a contract “soon” with architectural firm Barba and Wheelock, which is certified to provide a building structure survey with an historical rating based on criteria standardized by the National Register of Historic Places.

“The study will provide us with a base-line that we will need in order to apply for grants to help us preserve our historic features,” he said, “and I look forward to its benefits, to observing how historic preservation can help revitalize an area.”

Pat Webber, co-chair of a citizen sub-committee concerned with historic preservation, said where historical surveys are taken “residents learn more about the history of buildings they are surrounded by and they grow enthused and more concerned about their neighborhood’s upkeep.”

Webber said Knightville, as well as other areas in South Portland, is well endowed with houses dating back to the mid-1800s. “These are the historic homes of the middle and working class and have figured prominently in South Portland. But they are not often thought of as historic,” she said.

She said experience around the country is that historic surveys make residents more aware of the architectural history of their neighborhoods, and they are inclined to better appreciate and maintain their properties.

Historic surveys, she said, “would be a prerequisite for forming an historic district, but there are a number of reasons these surveys are made. Often they are used to help in planning.”

She noted that buildings don’t represent the entire history of a community, (shipyards and mills are gone), but they are the tangible things that are left and that we can see.

Both Haueser and Webber expressed hope that the Knightville survey will lead to historical surveys in other neigrhborhoods in South Portland.

For a fee of $5,800 Barba and Wheelock proposes to document the historic qualities, or lack thereof, of some 300 structures in the Knightville/Millcreek neighborhood. This includes the peninsula bounded by Mill Cove to the east, the Fore River to the west and to the south all of the properties facing Broadway from Anthoine Street to Cottage Road.

The contractor will train a group of resident volunteers who for each structure will fill out a comprehensive standard form developed by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. This form details the building’s size and architectural arrangements, architectural style, condition, present useage, and its historic nature.

In compliance with national historic standards, all buildings will fall into one of three categories. They either “contribute” to the historic preservation by remaining essentially as they were when built, or are “compromised” because original historic architecture has been altered with non-historic structural changes, or are “non-contributing” in either architectural style or age.

Haeuser said he expects the volunteers to be trained and in the field conducting the surveys sometime this summer.

With the survey and its focus on historic preservation, South Portland is pursuing one of the objectives of its recently adopted vision for Knightville/Millcreek. Late last year, the City Council adopted, as part of the city plan, a vision for the neighborhood that was prepared by a citizen steering committee. Webber and Sue Ray of Knightville are co-chairs of a sub-committee of the steering committee, one that is focused on historic conservation.