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The Portland Design Commission on Thursday gave design advice for a planned eight-story, 160-unit residential building in the Kerns neighborhood. The site is located at the northeast corner of Northeast 25th Avenue and Oregon Street within the Pop Blocks (formerly known as Pepsi Blocks) planned development area.

In 2018, the Portland Design Commission approved a framework for development of the site and the surrounding area between Northeast Sandy Boulevard and Holladay Street, and 25th and 27th avenues, with one half-block across 27th. That framework established certain development standards and design characteristics for buildings, open spaces, and streets.

Design and development of Building A, the Splash Apartments, was approved in December 2018. That project, now under construction, includes the pavilion at Sandy Boulevard.

Building B includes approximately 173,000 square feet of floor area and two levels of below-grade parking. Ankrom Moisan Architects designed the project for Security Properties of Seattle. The project is valued at $45 million, according to the Bureau of Development Services.

Residential units would include 30 studios, 73 one-bedroom apartments, 36 two-bedroom apartments and 21 one-bedroom townhomes, Ankrom Moisan principal Don Sowieja said. Amenities would include a leasing office, lounge and fitness areas, a ground-floor courtyard, an eighth-floor clubroom, and a rooftop deck.

The 2018 planned development envisioned ground-level residential space at the interior courtyard with more active uses such as work/live space, a lobby, a fitness area, a leasing office, or a cycling lounge at the frontages on 25th Avenue and Pacific Street, and retail space at the southeast corner. Additionally, at that time the below-grade parking entrance would be accessed from 25th Avenue.

The proposal includes some differences from the approved planned development, including relocation of the garage entry to the southeast corner, the introduction of residential units at the west and north ground levels, the replacement of ground-level retail space with a co-working amenity area, and an increase in floor area exceeding 5 percent of the previously approved maximum. Two Type B loading spaces are proposed for the Northeast Pacific Street woonerf.

The areas previously shown to be designated for active use would now mostly be townhomes with stoops accessed from the adjacent sidewalk. BDS staff suggested that the townhomes could be acceptable if designed as potentially convertible. Commissioners agreed with this and were mostly supportive of the change.

A portion of the site at the northeast corner is to become Pacific Park: an accessible play area/pocket park. The team is proposing a sculptural play area with mounded or raised planters and an ornamental tree and shrub planting, Lango Hansen senior associate and landscape architect Katherine Sheie said.

The exterior design calls for alternating columns of recessed balconies and both punched and operable windows. At the southwest corner, where both the ground-level entry and eighth-floor clubroom would be located, this pattern would change to a brick frame element. A similar brick frame element would be at the northwest corner around residential units, according to a discussion memo.

The brick frames would extend to the ground, where most of the exterior cladding would be wood in a two-story expression at the townhouses and one-story at the south fa莽ade co-working space with some concrete at the base and southeast corner. Wood is also proposed across the eastern interior courtyard fa莽ade.

Commissioners voiced concerns about straying too far from a simple massing and exposing wood. They advised that wood components should be recessed.

鈥淚n general, I like the shape of the building,鈥� Commissioner Zari Santner said, adding that it is mostly consistent with the planned development but does deviate in terms of simplicity.