91视频

Chase Bank backs out of plans for Hillsdale branch

By: Lindsey O'Brien//March 2, 2012//

Chase Bank backs out of plans for Hillsdale branch

Lindsey O'Brien//March 2, 2012//

Listen to this article

After butting heads with local residents for more than six months, JPMorgan Chase has abandoned its plans to build a Chase Bank branch on a vacant lot on Southwest Capitol Highway in Portland’s neighborhood.

Chase officials twice extended the public comment period on its proposal due to neighborhood concerns, but were ultimately unable to obtain city approval for the building by the Feb. 27 deadline that was set by property owner Wardin Investment Co.

Because Chase couldn’t meet all of the requirements of the conditional lease agreement in the time allowed, the bank last week notified Wardin Investment that it was moving on, according to Ardys Braidwood, Wardin’s managing partner.

鈥淚t’s just the way things happen,鈥 she said.

Braidwood helped design a four-tenant, one-story retail development for the site prior to the economic collapse in 2008. Interest in that project dried up after the downturn, at which point Chase Bank expressed interest.

But residents of the Hillsdale neighborhood have resisted the bank’s plans since becoming aware of them last August.

The original plans called for a branch building that occupied only 21 percent of the site, instead of the 50 percent required by the commercial storefront zoning in place in the Hillsdale Neighborhood Town Center. Chase officials negotiated with the local neighborhood association throughout the fall of 2011 and adapted the size and design of the project, but an agreement was never reached.

鈥淭he bottom line is that it just wasn’t going to be possible to come up with a mutually satisfactory design for the neighborhood association, Chase Bank, and the property owner,鈥 said Mikal Apenes, president of the Hillsdale Neighborhood Association.

Now, a major credit union is the first to express interest in the lot, which Braidwood’s family has owned since 1908.

鈥淲e’re talking to them, and to anybody and everybody,鈥 Braidwood said. 鈥淣othing has been agreed upon; it just came back on the market.鈥



News

See All News

Commentary

See All Commentary

COMMUNITY CALENDAR