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Defining the future of Centennial Mills is going to be a challenge.

“It’s not something you stumble onto,” said Patricia Gardner, president and planning and transportation committee chairwoman of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association. “It’s something you go to.”

Gardner on Thursday sat at a small table brainstorming over a map of the century-old flour mill on the Northwest riverfront. Joining her inside one of the site’s numerous warehouses were roughly 70 other real estate, development and design professionals from Portland and around the country. They had been called together by Harsch Investment Properties, which is seeking a redevelopment vision for the site.

In April, the Portland Development Commission issued a memorandum of understanding with Harsch to explore development opportunities. Others at Gardner’s table agreed that Centennial Mills needed to be a destination, but they wondered what would bring people there.

“What about converting some of the space into artist space and leasing it for very cheap rents?” asked Jonathan Malsin, general manager of Beam Development, of an idea to activate the abandoned mill with limited investment.

Craig Boretz, vice president of corporate development for Con-way Inc., listened and questioned whether Centennial Mills was an “if you build it, they will come” development, or if it needed a catalytic tenant. Bob Boileau, a principal at Myhre Group Architects, countered with another thought.

“Even though there is the hope for a large venue, it’s the smaller parties – the serendipitous happenings – that make it constantly active,” he said.

Centennial Mills was built in 1910 and operated until 2001, though its heyday was from the 1950s through the 1970s. The PDC has wanted to redevelop it since it closed, and has invested $14.4 million toward the effort so far (including a $200,000 settlement for an aborted development plan from 2008).

Much of the mill has deteriorated. During a tour at the beginning of Thursday’s event, David Obern, construction and environmental services manager for the PDC, led attendees through a maze of dank and dark hallways, and into vast, rubble-filled rooms supported by what seemed to be a veritable forest of old-growth timber and cobwebs.

” ‘Grimm’ (producers have) asked us three times if they can use the building,” he said in reference to the NBC show. “The simple answer is ‘no.’ ”

Because of its ailing condition, it is likely that not all of the approximately 314,000-square-foot site will remain. During a presentation, Timothy Eddy, a principal at Hennebery Eddy Architects, showed a slide that divided the mill’s 12 buildings into three categories: fair, poor and extremely poor. The most iconic building – a flour mill with a large water tower on its roof – was one of the extremely poor.

“How it gets cut up and how it’s repurposed is a complete mystery to me right now,” said Laurie Olin, a landscape architect and partner with the OLIN Studio in Philadelphia.

There is hope, said Tom Meyer, a founding principal of Minneapolis-based architecture firm MS&R, which has designed comparable redevelopments in Philadelphia and Minneapolis. During his presentation, he showed pictures of formerly decaying grain elevators that had been converted into active and crowded corridors.

“Great architecture has the tension between memory and invention,” he said, quoting writer and journalist Robert Campbell. “That’s the potential for this project … What’s been happening in the last 25 years or so is these things that used to be separate – historic preservation, environmental sustainability and a desire for projects to be creative and works of art – are now merging.”

With bonus provisions, development at Centennial Mills could reach a floor area ratio of eight to one, which would allow up to 1.4 million square feet of construction. Harsch’s agreement with the PDC stipulates that 75,000 to 80,000 square feet be reserved for cluster industry/traded sector employment space. It also requires that 30 percent of the site be set aside for open space.

Gardner said she believes that those rules and other development constraints dictated by the PDC are too restrictive.

“It feels like if this is truly a legacy project, they need to (loosen) the reins on it,” she said.

Other ideas were vast in scope, and took inspiration from sites like the Museu Maritim in Barcelona, Spain and the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Va. They included turning the mill into: a maritime museum; a hub for research and development; a brewery; a sports arena; a performance venue; and a water destination with a floating swimming barge.

Some proposed creating a water taxi system; others suggested building a pedestrian bridge over Naito Parkway a la the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy. As a destination site, parking promises to be a hurdle; serious consideration was given to extensive demolition to create space for new construction, while selectively preserving iconic buildings.

That differed from the original idea, which was to preserve most of the site with a small amount of new development to make it work economically. Jordan Schnitzer, president of Harsch Investment Properties, said he plans to go to the PDC with an answer to the redevelopment puzzle by this time next year. For now, he’s focusing on the questions.

“How much do we preserve, and how much should be torn down?” Schnitzer said. “Whatever we do, it has to be a time and place project … I feel we have the right people here with the right experience and ethics, and sense of community to make the right decision.”