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There are four things that Jim Atkins, the managing director of Seattle-based development company Mack Urban, looks for when planning a new development.

One is an employment base. Another is multiple transportation alternatives. A third is access to recreational amenities.

“Four, there’s got to be a ‘there’ there,” Atkins said. “There has to be something to do when you walk outside on a Saturday morning, or go get a beer in the evening. Admittedly, the South Waterfront is a little early in that process, but it’s going to get there.”

Despite attracting more than $1 billion worth of private development over the past decade, the South Waterfront District has struggled to attract some of the commercial vibrancy of other inner-Portland areas. But because the South Waterfront is at the doorstep of Portland’s largest employer, and at the confluence of the Willamette River and expanding transit lines, Mack Urban believes the neighborhood has all the necessary ingredients for growth.

The company, formed this past summer, recently purchased one of the area’s few remaining undeveloped parcels for $7.05 million, and plans to build a 281-unit multifamily building. But Mack Urban isn’t the only company planning projects.

New construction brewing at OHSU

When the Collaborative Life Sciences Building (CLSB) opens in July, Oregon Health & Science University will have built 1.3 million square feet in the past 10 years.

“Over the next five years, we hope to build another 1 million square feet,” said Brian Newman, director of campus planning, development and real estate for OHSU. “That’s an enormous injection of construction activity that’s really fulfilling the original vision of the South Waterfront.”

This past September, Nike co-founder Phil Knight pledged to donate $500 million toward OHSU’s cancer research if it could match that amount by the end of 2015. University officials this month plan to go before the Oregon Legislature to request $200 million in bond money as they pursue the goal.

If money were secured, OHSU would begin planning immediately for two new research facilities (one north of the CLSB; the other south of the Center for Health and Healing) that together would cost approximately $500 million. Construction, according to OHSU estimates, would create 6,835 direct and indirect jobs, $892 million in economic activity, and $35.3 million in tax revenue.

The facilities, once operational, would create 860 additional direct and indirect permanent jobs and $134 million in yearly economic activity. Plus the CLSB is expected to bring 3,400 people into the area.

Nevertheless, the South Waterfront is about 8,000 jobs short of the 10,000 identified as a goal in the Portland Development Commission‘s North Macadam Urban Renewal Area plan. It’s halfway through its 20-year lifespan. Newman said OHSU always viewed the area with a 30-year horizon, and sees future developments moving that destination closer.

“Any time you put down a building that’s 100 percent occupied on day one with a couple thousand employees, students and patients, it adds to the street life, and the retail activity that’s going on in the South Waterfront,” he said. “I think it’s a good thing as we start to transform that area into an authentic neighborhood.”

The formation of Mack Urban

Atkins has no trouble picturing that outcome. He got his start in real estate development in 1997 working for Dike Dame and Homer Williams. The two developers were buying property in the South Waterfront before urban renewal plans existed.

“Homer was one of the most creative, visionary people I’ve ever had a chance to work with,” Atkins said. “I remember him coming into our office and saying, ‘Hey, I want you to listen to this guy. He’s got this idea for this tram.’ ”

The Portland Aerial Tram has since shuttled more than 10 million people to and from Marquam Hill.

In the meantime, connections were being made to set the stage for formation of Mack Urban.

In 2004, Atkins went to Los Angeles to work on the development of high-rise condos; there, he met Matthew Burton and Paul Keller, the principals of a development company called Urban Partners. In 2012, the three joined forces with AREA Property Partners – an international real estate fund manager with investments worth $70 billion – to purchase Harbor Properties (later, Harbor Urban) in Seattle.

AREA Property Partners in July 2013 was acquired by Ares Management LLC, but one of its founders – William Mack – created Mack Real Estate Group (MREG) with his two sons, Richard and Stephen.

Zeroing in on Portland

Mack Urban is the merger of MREG and Urban Partners/Harbor Urban. Despite its ties to East Coast financial institutions, Mack Urban knows Portland’s story.

“While we see great growth in places like the big cities in Texas, we just don’t see high enough barriers to entry, and they don’t have the same urban core and urban appeal,” said Richard Mack, CEO of MREG. “When we invest in a city like New York, we are looking for those parts of New York that exhibit qualities much like Portland.”

Specifically, Richard Mack sees three things that spell opportunity in Portland: a nationwide trend among echo boomers and baby boomers to move into urban centers; an alluring food, bicycling and employment culture; and limited opportunities for developers to enter the market because of the urban growth boundary.

Burton, president of Mack Urban, said the combination makes Portland a perfect place to invest. The company already is in discussions with other property owners about future projects.

“I deal with a lot of our institutional investors,” Burton said. “I can tell you that Portland is absolutely on the radar for institutional investors. We will bring institutional investors into this deal; they like the Portland market. It’s probably not as widely accepted as places like Seattle, but I think it’s heading in that direction.”

As Mack Urban was formed, Atkins kept close ties with Dame and Williams. They sold the company its new property at 3700 S.W. River Parkway.

The upcoming project is still in the early design stage (GBD Architects is the designer), but Mack Urban hopes to break ground in the third quarter of 2014 and possibly open the building by the time OHSU starts its construction.

“With the benefit of seeing how the Pearl District evolved, I look at the South Waterfront in much of the same light,” Atkins said. “You have a neighborhood that has great bones, but these things take time to evolve.”