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The winning proposal to develop Portland’s Williams-Russell block calls for affordable rental and ownership housing, low-cost retail and office space, and a central plaza and garden.

How the project team gets there is perhaps as interesting as the development itself. The effort is led by Black-owned firms, including an experienced local developer who recently went out on her own.

The project team is largely composed of firms based in North and Northeast Portland. They will answer to a newly created nonprofit corporation made up of local community leaders, most of whom are Black.

All the $71 million project must do is offer restorative justice to a Black community torn apart by decades of displacement, gentrification and neglect, provide affordable housing in an increasingly expensive urban environment, and reactivate a keystone block that was left vacant for decades by the same organizations whose wrongs are now being righted.

Enter Anyeley Hallova, who is coordinating the project team.

Hallova, founder of Adre, is leading the project alongside two affordable housing developers 鈥� Community Development Partners and Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives. Many of the principals involved have worked with each other before, but it is Hallova who must bring them all together.

According to her admirers, she’s uniquely suited to that task.

鈥淪he’s kind of masterful at coalescing disparate groups of people and galvanizing people around a vision,鈥� said Tom Cody, managing partner at Project^. 鈥淪he’s an incredibly good manager and coordinator, and she’ll bring those skills to something so collaborative and vision-based.鈥�

Hallova founded Adre last year after 12 years as a partner at Project^. There, she earned a reputation for socially driven development projects, often with sustainable elements such as cross-laminated timber construction and strict energy performance goals. Hallova led development of the Meyer Memorial Trust headquarters project, and was part of the team that delivered the Oregon Conservation Center for The Nature Conservancy.

The Williams-Russell project, also known as the Hill Block development, is part of Hallova’s mission to develop projects that benefit the wider community.

鈥淚 specifically started this company with mission-oriented projects in mind,鈥� she said.

Hallova is quick to deflect attention to other project team members 鈥� housing developers CDP and PCRI, Colas Construction, LEVER Architecture and Hood Design Studio. Only Hood Design Studio 鈥� a Black-owned landscape architecture firm in Oakland, California 鈥� is not based in North-Northeast Portland. That means most of the project team is within walking distance of each other’s offices, and they share a sense of place.

鈥淭his is also our community, too,鈥� Hallova said.

The vision for the development is set out in the project team’s response to a request for proposals from Prosper Portland and the project working group. The Adre-led team is proposing affordable rental and ownership housing, office and commercial space, and a public plaza and garden.

The project team’s plan calls for a five-story, 94-unit multifamily building. Rents would be restricted to levels affordable at 30 percent to 80 percent of area median income. The project team is also looking into state funding for a possible early education center on the building’s ground floor.

Separately, 22 for-sale homes would be available in attached one-, two- and three-bedroom configurations. Homebuyers would be required to complete education and counseling.

The housing developers plan to seek out persons who were displaced by the construction of Interstate 5 and what is now a sprawling Legacy Health campus.

鈥淭he goal of the preference policy is really trying to reach out to the community that was impacted by the local policy,鈥� said Jessica Woodruff, director of development for Community Development Partners.

Gap financing from the Portland Housing Bureau and affordable-housing tax credits are expected to help finance the project, Woodruff said.

The commercial building would comprise approximately 41,000 square feet, conceptualized as a 鈥渃ommunal office,鈥� Hallova said. The building would function as a business incubator, with workforce training also possibly included.

鈥淲hat’s great about this project is that we can create a beautiful new building, Class-A office space, but figure out a way to have affordable rents,鈥� Hallova said.

The aim is to 鈥渃reate an ecosystem鈥� for emerging businesses 鈥� particularly those owned by people of color and other historically marginalized groups, Hallova said.

鈥淲e see this not just as a place for established businesses to be in, but for new businesses to incubate and grow,鈥� she said.

A measure of restorative justice is being sought for the Black community in North-Northeast Portland, where 171 families 鈥� 74 percent of whom were Black 鈥� were displaced by urban renewal projects in the early 1970s. Those projects were led by the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland) and Emanuel Hospital (now Legacy Health), according to a Prosper Portland history.

The Hill Block site held a commercial center for the surrounding Black community during the mid-20th century before it was condemned and demolished. In the decades since, the 1.7-acre block has sat empty.

In 2017, Prosper Portland officials rediscovered a 1980 deed provision requiring Legacy to develop the site. That kick-started discussions on what should be done with the block.

Prosper Portland continues to provide support to the project working group and the project team. Legacy has agreed to convey the property to the Williams-Russell Community Development Corporation at no cost. The CDC will serve as the project team’s client.

鈥淭he powers that be have recognized this historic injustice and are giving the land back to the community and supported development on the site,鈥� Hallova said.

The firms involved with the project are keen to right past wrongs.

The project team is 鈥渄edicated and poised to honor and represent those individuals that had land, property and generational wealth-building opportunities taken away from them when the development of the hospital and the interstate corridor occurred in the areas,鈥� said Kymberly Horner, executive director of PCRI. 鈥淚t is our mission and our goal to try to restore those injustices that occurred, and that is why we put our name in the ring to develop the site to honor the past and secure the future for those individuals and families to have a place to come back to and call home.鈥�

The project team is aiming to create a model for restorative-justice development not just in Portland, but in other American cities where Black neighborhoods were displaced.

鈥淚f you came to the city of Portland to visit, you might want to come and visit and learn the history,鈥� Hallova said.