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Plans presented for Hollywood HUB Housing to the Portland Design Commission on Thursday call for a 12-story, 120-foot building with 234 affordable units. It is the second design advice hearing for the project; the first included a 13-story, 199-unit building scheme.

The project in part is a reimaging of the Hollywood Transit Center and is the first proposal under TriMet‘s Transit-Oriented Development Guidelines. The site along Northeast Halsey Street is owned by the agency, but BRIDGE Housing is the developer for the building.

As part of the project’s scope, a new pedestrian and cyclist connection would be added to the end of the Interstate 84 pedestrian bridge. The goal is to create a seamless transit connection from the Hollywood MAX station across the bridge to the three bus lines in front of the building along Northeast Halsey Street.

Last time, commissioners said that the building’s L-shape design — coupled with the plan for the shared driveway, outdoor area and inactive ground-floor uses — would be unsafe and create a hostile pedestrian environment, according to the summary memo.

Senior City Planner Tim Heron said, 鈥渨hile this is technically 鈥� a second DAR (design advice request) for this site, it feels like a brand new one.鈥�

The building’s massing has transitioned to a C-shape with a courtyard in the cutout and has substantial relief along the north and south pedestrian transit connection planned.

鈥淭he new direction of the project is stupendous,鈥� Commissioner Brian McCarter said. 鈥淚t’s so much, it’s not even in the same universe.鈥�

Before, the development team was constrained by a Difficult to Develop Area boundary bisecting the site. Dave Otte, applicant and principal/owner at Holst Architecture, said it pushed their original design into that 鈥渞eally shoehorned鈥� L-shape.

Failure to keep the building within the boundary meant that the associated 30 percent boost in tax credit would be lost 鈥� about $10.2 million in tax credit equity.

What in part triggered the big massing shift was an agreement. The western and southern half of the transit site fell within the DDA boundary, established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Bridge Housing Executive Vice President Kurt Creager said, however, in the case of the transit center site it was an uncommon situation. The DDA boundary did not follow the property line but rather the busways. The line was calculated using the postal zip code for the transit area.

To rectify this, BRIDGE and TriMet worked with Senator Ron Wyden’s office and consulted with HUD, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Internal Revenue Service and Oregon Housing and Community Services. An agreement was reached to allow for Low Income Housing Tax Credit to boost any development delivered on the site, regardless of whether it is in inside or outside the current DDA boundary.

Creager said while they are technically unable to change the boundary until the 2030 census, they have received 鈥渁 favorable administrative interpretation,鈥� endorsed by the IRS and OHCS.

The resulting resolution meant that the Hollywood HUB Housing project could be built in a C-shape, alleviating most of the commissioner’s prior concerns and be completed within a single phase (rather than the two-phased approach proposed earlier). It also allowed an additional 37 housing units to be added.

鈥淚 know it has a long way to go,鈥� Commissioner Don Vallaster said, 鈥渂ut just the simple massing moves that have (been) proposed so far would make this a pretty outstanding building. So I think by the time they’re done this should be a real landmark for the neighborhood and for the city.鈥�

The pedestrian and cyclist connection, referred to as the “paseo,” was extended to the full width (64 feet) of the vacated street between the building site and the businesses across the street. The connection would be built by TriMet and function as an amenity for the greater community. Within the paseo will be a stair and ramp connection to the pedestrian bridge.

Alongside the connection will be an entrance to the future Sullivan’s Gulch Trail, a roughly 5-mile-long trail in planning from the Central City out to the Gateway Regional Center. Plans for the entrance call for a 20-foot-wide path to allow for bicyclists moving quickly to get on and off the trail.

鈥淚 can’t wait for the Sullivan’s Gulch trail to open up,鈥� McCarter said. 鈥淲hen that thing opens up and there’s people coming over the bridge, there’s people coming into the site from Sullivan’s Gulch, there’s people coming through the site from Halsey, it is going to be an amazing 鈥� a really pulsing urban place and that’s gonna be great to see.鈥�