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After 34 years, a four-year advisory committee process and two attempts to find a development team, the city is finally making headway on efforts to revitalize a former brownfield site in North Portland.

City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to accept the development proposal of Woolley Nyanneco LLC for the former gas station site at 8735 N. Lombard St. The team is made up of local developers Jeana Woolley and Roslyn Hill, Portland architect Tom Johnson and Portland-based design firm Bloc Design Development.

The team proposes construction of two LEED platinum buildings along Lombard Street with a public space/alleyway in between that leads back to the existing racquet center. There would be 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space along Lombard Street and the alleyway, with 9,200 square feet of second-level residential space. The team is also toying with the idea of adding live-work space and affordable housing units to the development.

The council used only 20 minutes to accept the firm’s proposal, but the city has been looking to develop the site since the Portland Development Commission purchased it in 1976. The PDC leased the site to adjacent business owners for parking between 1977 and 2004. With no funding for site cleanup or development, the PDC sought assistance from the Portland Brownfield Program after the lease ran out. Then in 2006 federal money paid for removal of seven underground storage tanks and 1,100 cubic yards of contaminated soil.

“This has been by far the most extensive brownfield project in terms of time and involvement,” said Marveita Redding, manager of pollution prevention services for the Bureau of Environmental Services. “This is the major brownfield project in Portland.”

Redding added that the four public meetings and 16 advisory committee meetings each drew almost 100 attendees and were highly contentious.

“Often in a public process that takes as long as this, the volunteer committee members lose focus or interest,” she said. “But this site has been bare for a long time and the neighbors really wanted to see it revitalized.”

Mackenzie Pratt, development director with Bloc Design Development, said the firm liked the scale of the project and the chance to be part of the revitalization effort in the St. Johns neighborhood.

But the accepted proposal was a far cry from the initial request for proposals that asked the team to assist in the redevelopment of the floundering city-owned racquet center that sits behind the site.

Redding said the advisory committee was looking for too much detail in the initial RFP. So it scaled it back and eliminated the racquet club redevelopment requirements because none of the teams could make the center pencil out, she said.

Woolley said the project is already going to be a jigsaw puzzle. Adding the racquet center to the mix did not make financial sense, she said.

The city removed the stipulations for helping with the redevelopment of the racquet center, but the team at Bloc decided to drum up some renderings anyway.

“After the center was taken out of the request for proposals, Bloc drew up a renovation design for the corner of the racquet center facing the brownfield site,” said Matthew Grumm, senior policy manager for Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who drove the development initially with Mayor Sam Adams, then a city commissioner. “Bloc is a young, hardworking and talented team. They will do a great job.”

Redding added that since the racquet center portion of the proposal was eliminated, residents of the St. Johns neighborhood have made a push to make sure the facility stays in operation.

“The process has reminded neighbors of how important the facility is and has created a strong community desire to retain it,” she said.

Developers Woolley and Hill bring experience into their lead roles for the project. Hill, known as the “Queen of Alberta,” played a major role in the revitalization of Northeast Alberta Street.

“It has been really interesting to work with both of the developers,” Pratt said. “They both have this energy and love for Portland that really shows in their work.”

Even with the development team selected, there are still plenty of hoops to go through. The development team will sit down with city council and the Bureau of Environmental Services throughout the summer to formulate a Development and Disposition Agreement that details the requirements the team must satisfy before the property title is transferred.

“There will definitely be some financing challenges in this economy, but nothing that can’t be overcome,” Pratt said.

Tim Johnson, architect for the project, said the team plans to spend the summer meeting with neighbors and continuing to refine the design.

“We won’t alter the base of the proposal at all,” he said. “But we will be working to make sure that the development represents what the neighbors want.”