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The team designing a mixed-use tower for 140 S.W. Columbia St.聽gave the Portland Design Commission six options to consider during a work session聽on Thursday. However, GBD Architects struggled to identify even one that would give developer Alamo Manhattan the 244 structured parking places it wants.

鈥淲e get your position about parking,鈥� Commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston said. 鈥淏ut parking isn’t a guideline. In fact it is, for all intents and purposes, peripheral to the discussion we will have in this room.鈥�

Parking is a major issue for the team planning a 20-story, 200-foot-tall building. The proposal calls for 347 residential units and 15,000 square feet of retail and office space.

The designers’ problem centers on the need to extend parking into a structure with the appearance of a residential tower. Architects can’t use the space for residential units or add a floor because they are already at the maximum allowable floor area ratio of 12:1.

Designers also can’t extend parking below grade because of landslide issues. They hoped to address the issues that by wrapping the exterior of the parking structure in precast concrete panels and changing the windows.

Despite their best efforts, the parking issue remained.

鈥淐an the parking change? Yes it can,鈥� said Craig Mendenhall, an architect with GBD Architects. 鈥淚s it detrimental to the project? Yes it is.鈥�

Changing the windows within the residential facade would not suffice, according to most commissioners. They made clear that any design that extends parking into a structure designed to look residential would be a tough sell.

鈥淵ou want a certain amount to make your pro forma work; I understand that,鈥� Livingston said. 鈥淭here is a design solution that requires some give at some point because right now there is no give on parking.鈥�

Livingston said commissioners understood limitations that designers were working under, but that a design that would meet commission standards must have a clear distinction between housing and parking.

鈥淚t really does seem as though something needs to shift to allow this to be housing or shift to allow the parking to continue on and read (as parking),鈥� Livingston said.

Commissioners were more complimentary of the designers’ choice of materials, saying precast panels would be a good choice.

The project is scheduled to return before the commission for a full hearing on聽Nov. 2.

Also on Thursday:

6620 N. Richmond St.

The Design Commission denied the appeal of Type II staff approval of SERA Architects‘ design for a five-story, 96-unit market-rate apartment building.

The Cathedral Park Neighborhood Association had sought retail space added to the ground floor and streetscape improvements.

Conditions attached to approval concern public access, integrated seating and scale of art on a wall along North Richmond Street.
5036 N.E. Sandy Blvd.

The Design Commission spoke largely in favor of plans for a six-story mixed-use building at the corner of Northeast 51st Avenue and Sandy Boulevard. The proposal calls for a 64-foot-tall structure with 85 market-rate apartments, ground-floor commercial space and surface parking.

Laurie Skokan, who lives at 2236 N.E. 51st Ave., near the project site, had issued an appeal based on height and parking concerns. However, the commission has little say on those issues.

鈥淚 kind of assumed the Design Commission had the authority to say the building could not be that tall, but apparently that is not the case,鈥� Skokan said. 鈥淚 am not sure why we are here, but we will continue on.鈥�

The record will be held open for the next 21 days for more testimony and rebuttals. A final vote on the appeal will be taken on Oct. 26.

Fremont Apartments

The Design Commission sent TVA Architects‘ design for a 17-story, 309,000-square-foot mixed-use building back for revisions. The proposal calls for a structure housing a restaurant on the ground floor and residential units on the upper stories.

The project will return before the commission on Nov. 2.