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Harsch Investment Properties is preparing to ramp up its development efforts.

The company announced Tuesday that it has hired urban planner Gil Kelley as its senior vice president of development. In a prepared statement, Harsch’s president, Jordan Schnitzer, said future projects are in the works.

“As I look at the next 10-year investment strategy for our Portland region, I realize I wanted our company to develop a number of legacy projects on more than a dozen of our prime downtown, Pearl District and Central Eastside sites,” he said.

The most prominent, perhaps, is Centennial Mills – on the northwest downtown waterfront. In April, the Portland Development Commission issued a memorandum of understanding, as well as a $350,000 matching loan, to Harsch to study redevelopment options for the century-old former flour mill. On Thursday, Harsch will host a visioning workshop at the mill for a select group of industry professionals, city leaders and national design experts to brainstorm ideas.

In the announcement, Kelley said the company’s resources (including 20 million square feet of office, multi-tenant industrial, multifamily and retail properties) and its civic spirit would enable it to contribute significantly to the discussion of what cities should be in the 21st century.

Kelley serves as a practitioner-in-residence at Portland State University‘s Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, and teaches an annual masters class on negotiating for public/private partnerships at the University of Amsterdam. In 2009-10 he was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University‘s Graduate School of Design.

Prior to joining Harsch, Kelley served as the director of planning for the city of Portland for nearly a decade. He also served as the director of planning and development for the city of Berkeley, Calif. Most recently he was the principal of Gil Kelley and Associates, an urban and strategic planning firm based in Portland.