In the early 1970s, Maine Medical Center undertook the construction of a new, multi-story parking garage down the hill from the original Maine General building and expanded MMC complex. Maine General Hospital's central building was constructed in 1876, the second pavilion (south wing) was added in 1892, the private pavilion (attached to the north side of the original building) was added in 1931, followed by the 1956 Pavilion and the parking lot built over the drained reservoir on Bramhall Street. The Richards Wing was the biggest addition at the time and dominated the western side of the campus.

In order to build the garage, crews spent a year creating the infrastructure to support the structure, installing pipe and conduits, building roads, even changing the topography of the site. A portion of Bramhall Hill was cut away in order to level a lot on which to erect the new parking garage. The earthmoving created a six-story cliff overlooking Congress Street. MMC’s facilities engineers designed a 200-foot-long, 65-foot-high retaining wall as part of an earth retention system.