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Rockwood Rising may not be an architectural or engineering wonder. But the $70 million project in Gresham can serve as a prime example of the public-private partnership development model that some companies choose to follow.

For Matt Brown, principal and co-founder of YBA Architects of Portland, this is definitely the case. Brown’s firm has existed just five years, but from his experience with Rockwood Rising it’s safe to say that YBA is more or less sold on the concept.

鈥淚 would say people at the firm, myself included, have worked on a number of public-private partnerships, but as a firm this is our first significant one,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淲e’re really thrilled to get engaged in something like this.鈥�

The multiuse development at the crossroads of Stark and Burnside streets in east Multnomah County has been a long time coming. The 5.5-acre property was vacated in 2005 following the closure of a Fred Meyer store. The city of Gresham purchased the property a year later for $8.1 million. A number of redevelopment ideas have since been bandied about, but nothing has stuck.

Now, Portland’s RKM Development is preparing to break ground later this year on a three-building project that will provide 108 new housing units along with new health care facilities, job training opportunities and small business space. Without the ability to bring both public and private needs together, however, the project would never have gotten off the ground.

鈥淚 guess, just from a purely architectural and design standpoint, I don’t think that there are particular features that are pioneering in terms of construction of the building,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淗owever, the whole proposition of putting a town center in that location and the amount of community engagement and outreach that was done is pretty pioneering and obviously has been done with what are very good intentions and I think by and large yielded very good outcomes.鈥�

RKM Development and owner Roy Kim already have a strong track record in this arena, having put together the celebrated Bethany Village community just west of Portland back in the 1990s.

鈥淭he owner of our development company has acquired an interest in doing projects in depressed areas, so that’s kind of what interested him,鈥� said construction manager Jeff Oberst of Central Bethany Construction, a subsidiary of RKM Development. 鈥淭his will be our second go-round with the partnership with the public sector.鈥�

This was exactly what the city of Gresham was looking for in a developer when it began the latest round of planning in 2014. This came five years after previous planning efforts were abandoned in the Great Recession.

鈥淚 want to say we had over 150 community engagement events of all different sizes,鈥� said Josh Fuhrer, executive director of the Gresham Redevelopment Commission 鈥� the city’s urban renewal agency.

Part of the process even involved bringing in residents to serve as paid consultants during planning. These individuals represented different community groups and ensured the widest range of voices possible would be heard during this process.

鈥淲e paid them as consultants to give us feedback about the types of things they’d like to see in the project,鈥� Fuhrer said. 鈥淎nd then we brought those constituencies into larger roundtable meetings for a kind of give-and-take conversation about what this project should be about and whether it’s going to serve the people of Rockwood to the maximum extent possible. So, really, the community engagement was not an afterthought; the idea of community benefiting from the project wasn’t some piece of lipstick we put on after the fact. It’s really baked into the DNA of the project.鈥�

The project consists of three planned mixed-use buildings on a parcel of property squeezed between East Burnside and Southeast Stark streets on the north and south and running from Southeast 187th to 185th streets east to west. Each building will be unique in size and composition, but the overall thrust of the project will be food-themed in recognition of Rockwood’s designation as a food desert, a U.S. Department of Agriculture term indicating at least 33 percent of the area’s residents live one mile or farther from a supermarket.

Then there is the financing for the project, which has a current budget of some $70 million.

鈥淲e haven’t done a lot of public-private projects this way, where you bring on a development partner and you partner to sort of co-develop the project together,鈥� said Fuhrer, who went on to praise the city’s experience in working with RKM Development.

Roughly $9.5 million in city urban renewal money is going into the project, along with $2 million from a state grant. Another $8 million in net tax credit equity completes the public piece, with the remainder, around $50 million, being fronted by the developer in the form of both debt and tax equity. It’s a big risk, but one that could pay off handsomely down the road.

Still, because public financing is involved, some of the potential risk is mitigated for the private side, Brown said.

鈥淭he reality of the finances is, because the city is engaged and is putting up funding for it, it’s helpful,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he market is an interesting place. Construction costs are high and seem to continue to rise with all the commercial work that’s going on.鈥�

Brown added that he feels Portland’s inclusionary zoning policy may have helped slow development of mixed-use projects in that jurisdiction. The result, he said, is that suburbs can benefit.

鈥淐ities like Gresham, the satellite cities,鈥� Brown said, 鈥渁re benefiting from the hesitation that developers in Portland seem to be exercising as they wait for the inclusionary housing policy to become clarified, especially in recent months where we’ve seen volatility in what the policy will be and what benefits will be offered.鈥�

Fuhrer noted, however, that while Gresham does not have an affordable housing policy similar to Portland’s inclusionary zoning regulations, Rockwood Rising nonetheless is using the latter as a blueprint to bring affordable housing units to the county’s least affluent sector.

Of the 108 planned studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments planned for Rockwood Rising, 20 percent will be allotted to families making less than 80 percent of the state’s median family income.

鈥淭hat’s consistent with Portland’s inclusionary zoning,鈥� Fuhrer said. 鈥淚t’s actually out of their playbook, so we’re trying to be consistent with that even though this is the city of Gresham.鈥�

Fuhrer said Rockwood has seen virtually no market-rate housing built over the past 20 years, despite a burgeoning population. At the same time, that population has not generally been able to keep up with metro-area rents in recent years.

鈥淲e know the importance of having more market-rate housing,鈥� Fuhrer said. 鈥淏ut we also know there are a lot of families that need affordable products, so we’re trying to meet both of those needs through a strategy that has a mix of housing types and a mix of price points, and some that are actually capped at 80 percent. That’s part of our anti-displacement strategy.鈥�

The city has tried to be mindful of that last aim, he said, despite accusations from some quarters that Rockwood Rising is little more than a gift to developers.

鈥淚t’s a big, big problem in a lot of places,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd we wanted to be very mindful of not creating a development that was going to push people in Rockwood out somewhere else, but really give them an opportunity to really put roots down and not treat Rockwood as a transitional place.鈥�

The rising rents elsewhere make avoiding the same trend in Rockwood a challenge, Brown said.

鈥淭he rents generally have a ripple effect,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey’ve been highest in the center of the city and have been rippling out from there.

If new development adds both housing and jobs, Fuhrer said, than perhaps some of the problems of displacement seen in other parts of the metro area can be avoided.

鈥淲hat we need to see is more development, more production of housing across the entire income spectrum,鈥� he said.