91视频

The Portland Design Commission on Thursday green-lit plans for a seven-story residential building within the Con-way master plan area of the Slabtown neighborhood.

The U-shaped building, designed by SERA Architects, will occupy the 49,870-square-foot Block 292 East (the eastern half of a superblock). The building will be bordered by Northwest Raleigh and Savier streets, and Northwest 20th Avenue.

The Con-way master plan 鈥� including 12 buildings 鈥� was approved in 2012. Block 292 East is the last block to be developed.

This new building will share the superblock with the recently constructed Saltwood North (Block 292 West). Saltwood South (Block 291 West) is south, across Raleigh Street. Both are mixed-use buildings.

Also across Raleigh Street is Block 291 East, where Freewell 鈥� a mixed-use project approved by the Design Commission in 2020 鈥� is under construction. Freewell鈥檚 western frontage is a pedestrian passageway that will connect with another in the middle of Block 292. Together, they will be one of the primary routes to a new park and public plaza.

Block 292 East is owned by Preg NW Portland LLC. It will be聽Cairn Pacific鈥檚 seventh development with partner Prometheus Real Estate Group.

The seven-story building will include approximately 159 to 192 apartments. The main building entrance and residential lobby will face Raleigh Street. The primary entry will be at a recessed, glassy link to an entry courtyard that opens toward the mid-block pedestrian passageway. Live/work units, residential units and amenity spaces will be along ground-floor street frontage.

Plans call for approximately 115 below-grade parking spaces accessible from Savier Street.

Block 292 East will have a five-story base with red brick cladding capped with a two-story metal-clad penthouse set back from the lower mass. Vertical rib siding will highlight the gabled upper townhouse levels and distinguish the penthouse level. Aluminum storefront windows with wood cladding accents and steel canopies will be at the ground level, a Bureau of Development Services staff report states.

The project team sought modifications that included an increase in building height by 14 feet, 10 inches.

鈥淭he maximum height proposed is above that (67 feet maximum),鈥� BDS staffer Tanya Paglia said during Thursday鈥檚 meeting.

Now the building is set to rise to 81 feet, 10 inches, Paglia said.

Also requested were a reduction in the spacing of bicycle racks from 24 inches to 18 inches and a reduction in the width of some parking spaces from 8 feet, 6 inches to 7 feet, 10 inches because of encroachment by structural columns.

All modifications were approved.

SERA Architects principal Kurt Schultz said the updated design from one presented during a design advice hearing in August includes widening the main entry, adding landscape buffers to the stoops for the ground-floor residential units on 20th Avenue, putting the transformer room in the basement, eliminating some residential units on Raleigh Street and adding units on Savier Street, and adding brick detail and glazing. Also, about 36 balconies were added.

鈥淲e have an amenity pavilion that has a wraparound terrace on three sides that anchors the top of the southwest corner pavilion,鈥� Schultz said of the rooftop.

The penthouse includes two-story townhouse units. All townhouses will have double-height living spaces.

Commissioners agreed that the ground-floor residential units are improved with landscape buffers and screening. The design also benefits from additional public realm elements and simplification in the penthouse massing compared to the rest of the building, they added.

鈥淚 think the difference between this building and the others (nearby) is the detailing of the bricks,鈥� Commissioner Zari Santner said of the color composition.

The brick detailing has made the fa莽ade rich, yet there is a simplification that makes the different partitions hold together, commission Chairman Brian McCarter said.