Inka Bajandas//February 19, 2014//

I probably belong to one of the last generations that immediately recognize a film slide – as in what we used before PowerPoint was invented.
When I saw a rendering created by Portland’s Works Partnership Architecture for a proposed nine-story mixed-use building in Northeast Portland, the design immediately made me think of an uneven stack of giant film slides teetering toward the sky. A collage of thick, white squares on the building facade look exactly like the plastic borders that surround a slide.
Renderings for the project at 111 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. recently became publicly accessible through a notice of a pre-application conference issued by the Portland Bureau of Development Services. According to the application, the proposed building would have ground-floor retail space, three floors of commercial space and 65 apartments on the other five floors. It also would have 58 subgrade parking spaces. The roof would have a deck, a garden and a mechanical penthouse.
The project would be located on Block 75, near the foot of the Burnside Bridge. The Portland Development Commission last summer sold the property to Portland-based companies Beam Development and Urban Development Partners for $2.26 million.
Beam Development has performed other projects in the Central Eastside District, including a redevelopment of the former Convention Plaza building slightly west of Block 75.