Portland City Council has granted an appeal by the architects of a Pearl District affordable housing building against conditions imposed on the project by the city’s Design Commission. The proposed building will be located at Northwest 14^th Avenue and Raleigh Street and is being designed by Salazar Architect and LRS Architects for affordable developer Innovative Housing Inc.

The 12-story project was approved by the design commission in September with multiple conditions of approval, one of which was the subject of the appeal on the grounds that it would add significantly to the project’s cost. Commissioners wanted a set of oriel windows at the building’s fifth and sixth floors moved up to connect with another group on the upper three floors, creating a singular oriel.

“This comes down to a difference of opinion about two design choices,” Stevenson said. “One of the options presents a real increase in cost to an affordable housing development that is struggling to stay on budget. We’re appealing to you, our city council, to ask that you prioritize affordable housing over aesthetic nuance, and let us move forward with a project that will provide crucial affordable housing to families in Portland that need it today.”

Speaking for the design commission, member Julia Molinar read from a letter prepared by commissioners arguing that the project should be held to the same standards as others.

“It’s significant that the proposal fell short across width and breadth of its response to design guidelines,” she said. “It is the design commission’s decision that the proposed development does not need to be a model citizen, but it does need to demonstrate a willingness to participate in civic life.”

In a 4-0 vote to grant the appeal, with Commissioner Steve Novick absent, Mayor Charlie Hales and city commissioners were quick to praise the Design Commission for its work.

“I’m going to be very glad to support the appeal,” said Commissioner Amanda Fritz, “while also honoring the good work that the design commission is doing.”

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The Portland Design Commission on Thursday gave its approval for a 12-story mixed-use project (including affordable units), but the decision may be appealed to Portland City Council because of two conditions the commission imposed.

The planned building at Northwest Raleigh Street and 14th Avenue was approved unanimously after about two hours of discussion, but Sarah Stevenson, executive director of developer Innovative Housing Inc., said she and her team will decide this week whether to appeal the conditions.

One condition concerns the design team’s groupings of oriel windows at the fifth and sixth floors with another grouping at the top three floors. City planner Grace Jeffreys said that staffers recommended moving all of the oriel windows to the top five floors.

As submitted, the design by Salazar Architect and LRS Architects shows a gray and white checkerboard pattern on one side of the building with the oriel windows on the other side. The groupings of oriel windows would be orange and the spaces between them, at levels two through four and levels seven through nine, would be white.

But in addition to lumping the oriel windows at the top of the building, city staffers also recommended bringing the checkerboard pattern around the building to fill in all the white spaces.

After the meeting, Stevenson said she was surprised that city staffers created a new rendering showing the changes they recommended. She said she would meet today with her staff and the design team to decide whether to appeal the two conditions to City Council.

The conditions attached to the approval could make a big difference in what happens next, Stevenson said.

“If their changes were purely aesthetic, we could move forward,” she said. “But these changes aren’t purely aesthetic and we need to talk about what’s the cost and impact of doing that redesign.”

The building’s design calls for 93 affordable units at the top 11 levels, ground-floor retail space, a lobby connected to bike parking and ground-level parking for 16 vehicles. Exterior materials include metal siding and vinyl windows over ground-floor brick and aluminum storefronts.

The redesign required by the city could impact costs and construction schedules.

“For me, it comes down to time,” she said. “We need to get started on this project and I’m feeling a lot of pressure to not delay on new affordable housing.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the roles of the architecture firms involved in the project.

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It didn’t take long for the Portland Design Commission to give final approval for the design of the Knight Cancer Research Building at Oregon Health & Science University’s campus in the South Waterfront District.

At the project’s first design review hearing last month, city planner Tim Heron outlined several problem areas; however, on Thursday the commission seemed satisfied that all the conditions had been met, said Brian Newman, OHSU‘s associate vice president of campus planning, development and real estate.

“They decided pretty quick,” he said. “I think we resolved everything they asked us to do and we were out of there in about 40 minutes.”

Newman said SRG Partnership‘s design changes included adding glazing to the Meade Street frontage area and increasing retail space. He said the exterior materials were made more coherent and the curb cut for the garage entrance was decreased from 32 feet to 23 feet.

“We also addressed the design of the penthouse by adding a lot more glazing on the west side,” he said. “On the Moody Street side we increased glazing by 70 percent and on the Meade Street side we increased it by 50 percent. So we went from a punched opening window system to a curtain wall of glass.”

The darkest gray exterior colors were eliminated, Newman said, and the rest were lightened.

Ground will be broken on the new building on June 16, he said.

“After that you will start seeing a lot of activity and cranes in the air,” he said. “I’m thrilled with the outcome and happy the Design Commission strongly endorsed the project.”

Plans for the $160 million project include a seven-story, 332,000-square-foot building with two levels of below-grade parking, a conference center, a research laboratory space, a lounge and a kitchen for employees, research support space, administrative offices, ground-level retail space and a plaza area.

At the previous design review, commissioners expressed concerns about the appearance of the sixth and seventh floors because they appeared “added on.”

That was mitigated, Phil Lopez of SRG told commissioners, by lightening the color palette, using taller vertical proportions, increasing the amount of glazing and “using a more elegant metal panel and adding a frame eyebrow element.”

Reducing the garage door opening to 23 feet to extend active retail space on Meade Avenue by 17 percent will also increase active use, Lopez said.

“We replaced the concrete surround with spandrel glass and flushed the garage door with the building perimeter,” he said. “We eliminated some service area doors and added a display window and increased east elevation active use space.”

At the end of the meeting, even though the design was approved, several commissioners lamented that it wasn’t pushed further.

“I do feel the Meade Street elevation has fallen pretty far short of guidelines for a vibrant streetscape,” Commissioner Julie Livingston said. “The fact that the (main) entry remains where it is and that there are still conflicts with deliveries and pedestrians really troubles me.”

Commissioner Don Vallaster also had reservations about the improvements.

“I had hoped the building would sing, but it doesn’t quite get there mostly because of the sixth and seventh floors,” he said. “It’s still a piece sitting on top of the building.”

Commissioner David Wark added that he believes the exterior design fell short of potential.

“Given the mission and the world-changing events inside it was just begging from my standpoint,” he said. “With each submittal I wanted a breakthrough or some more of something I could get my head around and really get excited about.”

Wark abstained from the vote without giving a reason. Commissioners Jeff Simpson, Andrew Clarke, Jessica Molinar, Livingston and Vallaster voted for approval.

Multifamily projects receive attention

Also on Thursday, the design of a new five-story, market-rate apartment building didn’t gain approval, but the developer feels that it’s getting close.

Jessica Greenlee, a representative of developer Affinity Property Management, said the advice given by the Portland Design Commission to the Ankrom Moisan Architects team is useful. She expects approval for the East Burnside Apartments to come at the next design review meeting, set for June 2.

“We didn’t get approved and they asked us to come back with minor revisions,” Greenlee said. “They asked us to put in an 8-foot fence and revise the composition of the front facing on Burnside (Street), and we’re working through those elements.”

Plans call for a 52-unit structure at 10506 E. Burnside St., with a common room and 15 spaces of tuck-under parking. Four units will be at ground level. Originally, cast-in-place concrete was proposed for the ground-floor exterior, with ribbed and flat metal panel systems for the upper floors.

The fence Greenlee referred to, originally planned at 6 feet, will be made of wood and wrap around the west side, south side and a portion of the east side to help screen the tuck-under parking. Tall landscaping, including possible preservation of an existing large Douglas fir tree, is expected to contribute to that effort.

The Design Commission also held a design advice hearing for a new 12-story apartment building at Northwest 14th Avenue and Raleigh Street. Preliminary plans call for 93 affordable units, 18 motor vehicle parking spaces and 26 long-term bike parking spaces on the quarter-block site.

The city staff report on the project, designed by Salazar Architect and LRS Architects, states that plans do not yet provide enough flexible spaces at the sidewalk level to support a variety of uses. Staffers also asked for clarification on a large assembly of louvers proposed along Northwest 14th Avenue to ensure that the exhaust routing systems do not detract from the pedestrian environment. The ground floor was also described by staffers as “tight to the frontage,” providing little relief along sidewalks and not providing “places where people can stop, view, socialize and rest.”

In addition, the staff report noted that no canopies are proposed and that the main entrance should be better acknowledged.

This was the second design advice hearing for the project; no date has been set for a future meeting before the Design Commission, city planner Grace Jeffreys said. The commission endorsed the staff report, she added.

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A 12-story affordable housing tower is planned for the north end of the Pearl District.

The 160-foot-tall, quarter-block development will contain 93 affordable units, community rooms, a small rooftop deck and a second-floor outdoor play area. The building will feature brick at ground level and metal-panel cladding above.

The project by Innovative Housing – still unnamed – is being designed by Salazar Architect and LRS Architects. Bremik Construction is the contractor and KPFF is the structural engineer.
It’s being funded by a combination of sources: a mortgage, money from the Portland Housing Bureau and low-income tax credits. There is also a chance that energy trust rebate dollars could factor in, said Julie Garver, housing development director for Innovative Housing.

Innovative Housing, a private nonprofit founded in 1984, has developed 1,000 units in the Portland area.

The project is scheduled to go back before the Design Commission on May 12.

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A new apartment building for low-income residents in the Pearl District will have more than twice as many units as planned originally if revised plans are approved.

Original plans called for a six-story building with 40 units of affordable housing. The new plans, also preliminary, call for a 12-story building and 93 units of affordable housing.

The project’s developer, Innovative Housing Inc., is planning to present the new plans to the Pearl District Neighborhood Association on March 1, said Julie Garver, the nonprofit’s housing development director.

When plans for the development on the northeast corner of Northwest Raleigh Street and 14th Avenue were submitted to the Portland Housing Bureau initially, a couple of options were given for increased density, Garver said.

“The PHB decided it would like more density on the site and asked us to formalize that (bigger) proposal,” she said.

Innovative Housing Inc. was selected by the Portland Housing Bureau to develop the site, which the city bought last year from Hoyt Street Properties for $1.3 million.

The project will be financed by low-income tax credits – “a financing tool that works well on a large project like this,” Garver said.

Construction is expected to start in 2017.

Another change to original plans is a courtyard move, said project manager Dave Turville of LRS Architects. LRS is designing the building in complete collaboration with Salazar Architect, a new Portland firm.

“They have done a fantastic job,” Turville said.

Salazar Architect is designing the building’s shell and common interior spaces, and LRS Architects is the architect of record and is handling project management and design of apartment spaces.

“The previous plan had the courtyard on the street, and this (plan) moves the courtyard to the interior – the northeast corner of the site,” Turville said. “The building will wrap around two sides of the play area for kids and there will be indoor and outdoor play areas.”

Other amenities will include a small rooftop terrace with a kitchenette for residents, a laundry room, and bicycle parking with a wash and repair station. Originally, the apartments would have been studios or have one or two bedrooms; now, plans call for apartments with one, two or three bedrooms, Turville said. One-bedroom units will be between 500 and 600 square feet, two-bedroom units will be around 800 square feet and three-bedroom units will be between 1,000 and 1,100 square feet, he said.

The building will be constructed on a small vacant lot, Turville said.

“It’s pretty compact, but it will be nice housing for people,” he said.

All rental rates for the apartments will be in the affordable range, Garver said. Targeted tenants will be families who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Kurt Creager, director of the Portland Housing Bureau, said he is pleased with the design and that a decision was made to use all available public funding for the project.

“We have so few properties in that area that we are trying to maximize public value for a mix of homeless families and the downtown workforce,” he said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the roles of the architecture firms involved in the project.

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The Portland Housing Bureau has selected a nonprofit developer’s proposal for construction of a new building with at least 40 units of affordable housing on city-owned land in one of Portland’s most upscale neighborhoods.

Innovative Housing Inc. has a plan calling for 15 three-bedroom units, 15 two-bedroom units and 10 studios on vacant property at Northwest 14th and Raleigh Street in the Pearl District.

Seventy-five percent of the building’s units would be for Portland’s lowest-income households (those with incomes under 30 percent of the median family income, or $22,050 for a family of four), according to Housing Bureau spokeswoman Martha Calhoon. The targeted families would be those that are homeless or at risk of homelessness, she said.

“Achieving that level of affordability in a project is significant, particularly in an area where developable land is getting increasingly hard to acquire,” she said.

The city this past spring bought the quarter-block property from Hoyt Street Properties for $1.3 million – below market rate – after the developer came up short of an affordable housing development target in the Pearl District. Construction of the new building is expected to start in 2017.

As proposed, the building would be six to nine stories and have ground-floor common areas and outdoor play areas. The common areas would include a community room, indoor play areas, a laundry facility and on-site support services for residents.

The building could end up with more than 40 affordable units, Calhoon said.

“There are some opportunities to maximize density,” she said.

The effort is consistent with the “Home for Everyone” plan supported by the Portland City Council and Multnomah County commissioners. Mayor Charlie Hales and Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman have pushed the council to declare a state of emergency and worked up proposals to shelter the city’s estimated 4,000 homeless people.

The Pearl District, a former industrial area full of warehouses and rail yards, was targeted for urban renewal beginning in the late 1980s. Today it’s home to many upscale art galleries and restaurants, as well as substantial high-end housing. Between the 2000 and 2010 U.S. censuses, the neighborhood saw 551 percent growth in housing units.

Since the mid-1990s, the city has had a goal of Pearl District residential development including 35 percent affordable units. The Lovejoy Station Apartments, Sitka Apartments, Ramona Apartments and Pearl Court all contribute to that effort. The six-story Abigail building, which will have more than 100 affordable units, is nearly finished at the north end of the district.

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