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Prosper Portland plans to solicit developers’ interest in Northwest Portland’s U.S. Postal Service property beginning in mid-November, an agency official said Thursday.

The solicitation would then stay open until mid-January, said Sarah Harpole, project manager for Prosper Portland, the city agency formerly known as the Portland Development Commission. A preferred developer would be selected to consult on a master plan for the 14-acre property in April 2018.

Prosper Portland officials and planners for ZGF Architects gave a broad update of their progress to the Portland Design Commission on Thursday. The stakes are high for planners to deliver on what’s essentially a blank slate for a large and highly desirable property in Portland’s urban core.

鈥淭his is a very unique opportunity to develop a large site within Portland that is already well-served by transit,鈥� said Kathy Berg, a ZGF partner.

Prosper Portland is embarking on a long and involved public planning process for the Postal Service site and nearby Union Station, known collectively as the Broadway Corridor. The agency has formed a 42-member steering committee that meets monthly. The committee has convened a number of subcommittees.

Planners are discussing a number of big-picture guidelines, such as a minimum floor-to-area ratio to ensure the parcels are built to an adequate height and density.

There’s also interest in allowing larger blocks than the typical 200-foot-by-200-foot grid that predominates in Portland’s central city.

鈥淭here’s a need for larger floorplates for corporate tenants,鈥� said Nolan Lienhart, ZGF’S director of urban planning and design. 鈥淭here could be an appeal to larger sites than are currently available in Portland.鈥�

Some of the discussion centered around how best to involve developers in the process, and whether an early consulting developer would have an unfair advantage in winning work later on.

In ZGF’s research to date of case studies in other cities, there’s little precedent for one developer serving as an early advisor and then another developer serving as the primary developer, Lienhart said.

Prosper Portland’s solicitation to developers will be more similar to a request for qualifications than a request for proposals, Harpole said. She was reluctant to delve into specifics with the Design Commission.

鈥淲e don’t yet know the contents of the solicitation,鈥� she said.

Portland agreed in May 2016 to buy the Postal Service’s central Portland property for $88 million.

The Postal Service is due to move its operations to a location near Portland International Airport in late 2018.

Prosper Portland released the Broadway Corridor Framework Plan in October. That plan called for 3.8 million square feet of development on the Postal Service property that bridges Union Station, downtown and the Pearl District, along with parks, open space and transportation infrastructure. The plan envisioned nearly 2.1 million square feet of residential space.