A nonprofit’s latest affordable housing project in an area of Portland affected by gentrification is advancing.

The three-building Avenue Plaza apartment complex, at 5025 N.E. Eighth Ave., is being deconstructed to accommodate construction of the new five-story, 78-unit Nicole Sandoval Building. Its address will be 5015 N.E. Eighth Ave., near the intersection with Northeast Alberta Street.

There will be 35 two-bedroom units, 39 one-bedroom units and four studios in the 79,442-square-foot building. Twelve of the units will have accessibility features.

Of the 78 apartments, 22 (via U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development assistance) will be for individuals earning up to 50 percent of area median income, according to owner/developer Sabin CDC, and the other 56 will be for people earning up to 60 percent of AMI.

The project team also includes development consultant Edlen & Co., architect Scott Edwards Architecture, civil engineer Janet Turner Engineering of Lake Oswego, structural engineer VALAR Consulting Engineering of Clackamas, landscape architect DELA STUDIO, and construction manager/general contractor LMC Construction.

The building is named for Nicole Sandoval, a former resident in one of Sabin CDC’s properties and former chair of its board of directors. She also is an artist and children’s entertainer known as Nikki Brown Clown.

“She was instrumental in a key transition period for Sabin when I came on as executive director,” Sabin CDC’s Mary Schoen-Clark said. “Her support was really important during those days.”

The long-term, primarily Black residents of Avenue Plaza provided the motivation for Sabin CDC to tackle the project, Schoen-Clark said. Due to the rising cost of living in the Alberta Arts District, residents started to move out.

Sabin CDC’s long-term strategy is to ensure Northeast Portland residents can continue living in the community. Previously, the nonprofit delivered the Harvey Rice Heritage affordable housing development featuring the Isaka Shamsud-Din complex (on Northeast Killingsworth Street) and Charlotte Lewis complex (on Northeast 72nd Avenue). Two other projects are in the works.

One of the tasks for the design team was to ensure the Nicole Sandoval Building will fit within the Alberta Arts District, Scott Edwards Architecture project architect Sander Kohler said. The building will have a brick façade on the front and fiber cement siding with a board and batten pattern on the back.

Sabin CDC also charged the design team with the task of designing an energy efficient building able to spare residents from the burden of utility costs, Scott Edwards Architecture principal Hayley Purdy said. In fact, tenants won’t pay for any utilities.

In work with the Energy Trust of Oregon through its Path to Net Zero program, the design team identified many sustainable items for the building. These will include a ground source heat pump (the HVAC system), a 114-kilowatt solar array on the roof, a hot water heat pump system with storage tanks, a battery backup system, an efficient building envelope with increased insulation, triple-pane windows, all Energy Star appliances, full on-site stormwater retention including native plants, LED lighting, and more.

A monitoring system will be used to collect data from solar and geothermal systems in a format easily accessible by staffers, according to JT McElrath, cultural events and communications coordinator for Sabin CDC. That will allow system adjustments to ensure efficient energy use.

In addition, peak shaving will go one step further by accounting for when demand for electricity is high and companies’ rates are highest.

“By lowering our demand on the grid at these peak usage times, we lower our utility bill and provide less strain on the electrical grid,” explained Nathalie Hansen, assistant to Schoen-Clark.

The building won’t be net zero due to site constraints, according to Purdy. However, it is expected to receive certification in the Path to Net Zero high-performance tier. The project team is also targeting NGBS (National Green Building Standard) Green certification at the emerald level.

For seismic resiliency, the building will have a post-tensioned slab between the first and second floors. Several areas on the first floor will connect to the battery backup system and be shelter-ready.

Also, there will be 78 bicycle parking stalls, and the site is one-quarter mile from mass transit.

Construction is expected to cost $36 million. Sabin CDC declined to disclose the full project cost.

Funding is from Heritage Bank, Beneficial State Bank, Network for Oregon Affordable Housing, Enterprise Community Partners, Fairview Trust, Oregon Housing and Community Services, Portland Clean Energy Fund, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Metro.

Deconstruction of the three Avenue Plaza buildings began early last month. Sabin CDC is working with the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability on a commercial deconstruction pilot project, Hansen said. Portland YouthBuilders, OregonServes and Meticulous Deconstruction are participating in the effort.

The team has salvaged ovens, fridges and doors from the Avenue Plaza buildings, Hansen said. Windows have been removed and repurposed at a nursery. Studs and ceiling joists have also been salvaged. Some two-by-fours will be used for an accessory dwelling unit Sabin CDC is building in partnership with the city. Some materials are going to the ReBuilding Center in North Portland.

“We’ve also reinvested a lot of material that was on-site into our existing properties,” Schoen-Clark said. “That’s been a nice legacy moment for the existing buildings.”

Construction of the Nicole Sandoval Building is expected to be completed before it receives residents in January 2028.

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The Center for Equity and Inclusion, a Portland consulting group, is planning to move into a new office in a 107-year-old building now being renovated.

The $1.5 million remodel, designed by CIDA, is being led by general contractor Joseph Hughes Construction. Work is under way at 1801 N.E. Alberta St.

The move is a big step for CEI, and a homecoming for one of its two co-founders. Frewine Kiros, who is Black, grew up nearby on Skidmore Street and watched the Alberta Arts District transform into a trendy and increasingly expensive neighborhood.

“I remember growing up in Alberta, where it was both a place where Black businesses and residents thrived, but also a neighborhood that was overlooked by the city,” she said. “The issues that were happening in that neighborhood were often ignored.”

As signs of gentrification appeared, the historically Black neighborhood became whiter and less welcoming, Kiros said.

“It took many years,” she said. “As the city began to invest in it, as the city began to serve that community, as that street became a priority – it seemed as though at the same time, Black families and people were being pushed out and were replaced by white families and businesses. All of the sudden, you walked down Alberta as a Black person and you felt uncomfortable.”

CEI started in Kiros’ basement before moving to an office on South Macadam Avenue. However, it closed as employees began working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kiros and CEI co-founder Hanif Fazal jumped at the chance to buy a building on Alberta Street.

“When the building on Alberta came up for sale, for us it felt like one of those things that was just really meant to be,” Kiros said.

Kiros and Fazal, via a limited liability company, purchased the Alberta Street property from Joseph A. Benjamin, for $1 million in December 2019, Multnomah County records show.

“This was an opportunity to ensure that the building stays in people of color’s hands,” Fazal said.

CEI uses a long-term training model to help organizations such as Cambia Health Solutions, Meyer Memorial Trust and the Portland Trail Blazers boost diversity in their organizations. That’s somewhat unusual – many diversity workshops are structured as a few days or a week at most.

“Our process is a year long, and sometimes multiple years,” Kiros said. “For us, we believed that true transformation couldn’t happen in three days or a month.”

CEI seeks to embed equity processes in a client organization, so it’s not merely one person’s job.

Kiros and Fazal started the consulting company after working with youth in Portland Public Schools. Kiros said she began to question whether it was her goal to help academically struggling youths – often people of color – navigate ninth grade, or to change the institutions to eliminate barriers to success.

Kiros herself is a product of Portland Public Schools. She attended Lincoln and Grant high schools, and then Portland State University.

CEI hopes to move into the newly refurbished building in May or shortly thereafter, Kiros said. The organization has about 15 employees.

The building, constructed in 1914, previously held Solae’s Lounge, along with three residential apartments on the second floor. CIDA’s design will transform most of the ground floor into a large, flexible space for trainings, and the second floor into offices. An elevator is being added on the east elevation.

Joseph Hughes Construction is also conducting a seismic upgrade, with steel now bracing the more-than-century-old brick.

Later on, Fazal said, another building of three to four stories could be constructed on the side lot.

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Though the city of Portland will consider updating its rules regarding accessory dwelling units, advocates of backyard construction say far larger issues remain.

Draft amendments to the Portland Zoning Code loosening restrictions on ADUs and other accessory structures will be heard by the City Council on Nov. 12. Existing rules governing ADUs are an aggregation of revisions, some going back to when Portland first experimented with residential outbuildings 25 years ago.

The update process, which began in January, has been relatively low-drama given current feelings about the high cost of living in Portland, ADU advocate Kol Peterson said. And the proposed changes are good enough, he said, that many property owners are holding onto permit applications until they’re passed by the City Council.

“I’d say about half the homeowners I interact with are waiting because the rules are so good,” said Peterson, who runs accessorydwellings.org as well as the ADU-inspired Tiny House Hotel in the Alberta Arts District. “It changes the possibilities of what we do.”

An overarching goal of the code revision project has been to plan based on an accessory structure’s “form” over its “function,” said planner Phil Nameny, the project manager. In particular, the project’s focus group looked at the rules that owners have most often asked to be adjusted, he said.

Under the changes, accessory structures would be considered more like garages. And with the elimination of many site-specific requirements, owners could save on design costs by going with “stock” ADU plans, Nameny said.

Among the proposed changes, a one-story accessory structure could be built closer to setbacks and property lines. In another, the uniform height maximum for all detached accessory structures would be raised from 18 feet to 20.

“Some of the changes will streamline things dramatically,” said Bryan Danger, owner of zenbox design, which specializes in ADUs.

“For the smaller ADUs, things will be remarkably easier.”

But two big issues remain, and Peterson says they’re significant enough they could cause this fledgling field of homebuilding to fizzle out.

For one, a waiver on system development charges is scheduled to expire in July 2016. The number of ADUs in Portland has risen sharply since the waiver was enacted in 2010, from 262 to more than 1,200 today. Peterson said that he is meeting with council members to gauge their feelings about a possible renewal of the waiver.

The other issue is a change in how Multnomah County calculates property taxes. New tax bills for owners of detached ADUs have come in as much as 600 percent higher than previously, according to statements by property owners who commented on Peterson’s blog post “” on accessorydwellings.org.

One thing that Peterson said is working against ADUs is the popular feeling they’ve been a smashing success. Twelve hundred still isn’t many, he noted.

“We had a huge spike,” he said, “but it’s still insignificant.”

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Construction has started on a two-story, mixed-used office and retail building on Northeast Alberta Street and 20^th Avenue.

The 20,000-square-foot building, designed by local architect John Cooley, will be able to hold up to seven retail spaces on the first floor and 10 office units on the second floor.

“The idea with the building is it really creates a neighborhood that people can live, work and shop in,” Cooley said.

The locations of the building’s binding walls are flexible, so some tenants may use more space than others. Small courtyards outside the building will enhance the streetscape of the site.

Development in the Alberta Arts District has grown over the past decade with the addition of stores, art galleries, restaurants and multifamily housing. But the site of Cooley’s newly-designed mixed-use building has remained vacant.

“This will knit together the upper and lower ends of Alberta,” he said.

The building is expected to be completed late this summer. Its tenants haven’t been determined.

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A building that formerly housed a church in the Alberta Arts District of Northeast Portland is being pegged for use as a community center.

The building, at 5131 N.E. 23rd Ave., was the longtime home of the International Fellowship Family church. The building was deeded to the lender, Evangelical Christian Credit Union, in 2005, and the church now operates at 4401 N.E. 122nd Ave. The 7,388-square-foot building is for sale at an asking price of $495,000.

The building would be a good candidate for a community center, according to broker Sara Daley, because zoning allows for educational, event, community or religious uses through the conditional use permit process.

“It’s a little bit of a head-scratcher, only because it’s in a residential zone,” Daley said. “But it’s been priced pretty aggressively to accommodate for the fact that if it has a different use than a church it will have to go through a conditional use process.”

Of course, successful navigation of the conditional use process would require the buyer’s plans to dovetail with residents’ desire for the building.

“That’s why it would be a perfect building for a community center or arts use,” Daley said. “In order to achieve that, whoever goes in there is going to need to have the support from the district because to go through the conditional use process, you need to have neighborhood approval.”

The building was constructed as a Masonic lodge in 1924. It has a large sanctuary with high ceilings and a wraparound balcony, which includes offices, classrooms, storage and restrooms. Additional fellowship space, a kitchen and restrooms are on the ground floor.

For details on purchasing this property, contact Daley at 503-721-2726 or sdaley@kiddermathews.com.��

Block by Block is a weekly look at commercial real estate around Portland. Send suggestions for properties to BlockxBlock@djcOregon.com.

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The odds were against her, but Kim Malek wanted to open her new ice cream shop in time to catch some of the summer rush.

Malek believed the growing arts district on Northeast Alberta Street would be the perfect home base for , which offers unique, locally sourced ice cream. But a remodel of the Acme Glass Building on Northeast Alberta at 21st Avenue would not be done until the end of summer.

So while one general contractor handled the overall remodel of the building, Malek hired her own crew to finish her space quicker. But that solution stacked a whole new set of odds against Malek and her project team.

“The project was fraught with inherent challenges,” project manager Kevin Guinn said.

Crews working for the developer, 21 Alberta LLC, were still gutting and remodeling the rest of the Acme Glass Building, and Malek sought a four-week turnaround from Hammer and Hand.

The Salt and Straw shop accounts for only about one-fourth of the ground-floor retail space. Normally, the major renovation would be finished first, and then individual tenants could add finishes. But because of the timing involved, the Hammer and Hand team worked in an unsecured Salt and Straw space for most of the project.

During construction, Malek was down the street selling her ice cream out of a custom-built cart. Nate Celko, the developer behind the Acme Glass Building, let the Salt and Straw cart park on the patio of another of his properties – the Alberta Central complex between 17th and 18th avenues. Although Malek said the interim cart setup was a “blessing in disguise,” her eye was still on the Acme Glass Building.

“It’s easy to imagine two teams of construction folks in there, pointing fingers about who’s there at what time, and on top of that I was insisting on this unreasonable timeline,” Malek said.

But lead carpenter Stephanie Lynch worked closely with the 21 Alberta LLC crew and Celko to coordinate work schedules. Hammer and Hand ended up building the demising wall to prepare for finishes.

“Communication with the developer was important every single day,” Lynch said. “We both had our agendas and we just had to do our best to take care of each other and make it all flow smoothly.”

The finishes that Hammer and Hand rushed to install were not run-of-the-mill. Malek wanted Salt and Straw to feel “as if it had been there forever,” so the shop includes wood from the bleachers of Lewis and Clark College’s original athletic stadium, salvaged Multnomah County Library shelving, and materials from a 100-year-old barn and a deconstructed high school.

Salt and Straw’s early debut in the Acme Glass Building, on Aug. 12, paid off.

“(August) 13th is still our record day – the line was all the way down the street,” Malek said. “It was the best marketing anyone could ask for. I owe a lot to everyone.”

The overall building renovation is nearly completed and will result in the availability of about 5,000 square feet of retail and creative office space. Another mixed-use project is planned for the adjacent property, and retailers have already expressed interest in leases even though construction will not begin until November, according to broker Kathleen Healy.

“It’s really unusual to get offers at this point in the process,” she said.

Healy is managing the retail space on the ground floors of both the Acme Glass Building and the adjacent 20:20 property, which is expected to be completed in summer 2012. Interest is continuing to grow for spaces in both buildings, she said.

Benco is negotiating a lease with a widely known Portland chef who wants to open a restaurant in the space next to Salt and Straw. Healy declined to identify the chef, because a deal hasn’t been finalized. Also, a business that sells medical-related items may reserve retail space in the 20:20 before ground is even broken for the building.

“I’m over the moon,” Malek said. “My business depends on foot traffic and a thriving community. I’ve heard hints about pretty amazing tenants negotiating leases, and this could really become a destination for Portlanders to come out for the night.”

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The creator of the nation-wide Main Street Program is checking in on Portland’s Alberta Main Street after its inaugural year of service.

Representatives from the National Trust of Historic Preservation will be in Portland June 21-23. They will conduct focus groups and interviews with community stakeholders to find out how successful the Main Street Program has been the first year and how it should develop in the coming years.

The visit will conclude on June 22 at 6:30 p.m., when the group will give a public presentation at St. Andrew Catholic Church, 806 N.E. Alberta St. The presentation will focus on how the Main Street approach to historic commercial district revitalization has been used across the country and how it can help the Alberta program in the future.

In addition to a candid written assessment of the opportunities and issues facing the Alberta Main Street program, the team will also put together a 12-24 month implementation strategy that the program can follow moving forward.

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Two commercial buildings on Northeast Alberta Street have been selected by – an economic development non-profit – to receive $5,000 each from for sustainable façade improvements.

After seven building owners applied for the organization’s inaugural Façade Improvements Program – asking for a total of $30,000 – Alberta Main Street‘s board selected two buildings: 1700-1726 N.E. Alberta St. and 2734-2738 N.E. Alberta St. Tenants in the first building include the Community Cycling Center, All Teased Up Hair Salon, Mimosa Studio and Earl’s Barbershop. Al Forno Ferruzza Pizzeria and Six Days Art are tenants in the second building.

The building owners will now get together with the organization’s architect, Brian Emerick of the Portland-based , in order to design the façade improvements. The money can be used for sustainable improvements to the building’s façade, signage or awnings. The only stipulation is that improvements must be to areas visible from the public way.

Alberta is one of three areas – the other two being St. John’s and Hillsdale – selected by the city last year to take part in Portland’s Main Street Program. The program is a four-point strategy to neighborhood commercial district revitalization developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Façade improvements on Northeast Alberta Street are expected to get underway on June 15, with a tentative completion date set for the end of August. Building owners are required to at least match the funds provided by the organization.

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The has become an effective revitalization tool for downtown districts and historic neighborhoods. But cities around Oregon and across the country are being challenged to secure money needed to maintain operations.

Some municipalities and program organizers are considering whether to initiate property tax overlay districts to supplement funding. And in Portland, where three Main Street programs kicked off this year, organizers admit some sort of taxing district is a real possibility.

The started the Main Street program with the goal of helping revitalize commercial districts through historic preservation. The trust offers technical, marketing and financial support to participating cities and states, which then target historic commercial districts.

But while Main Street programs receive some start-up money from state and city sources, coordinators also are required to raise money to help pay for an executive director and operational costs.

“With these programs, like most nonprofits, fundraising is an ongoing battle,” said Sara Wittenberg, a nonprofit consultant hired as the executive director of the Main Street program in Alberta, one of three participating districts in Portland. “We had 102 pledges to get our initial start-up money, with donations ranging from $20 to $5,000.”

The state has seven programs that operate in a similar fashion to those in the three Portland districts; 60 others are in the application process. One of the seven programs is in Oregon City.

The city of Oregon City started its program three years ago. Organizers have since created the award-winning Blue Collar Creative economic revitalization video that promotes downtown, and written grant proposals for more than $3 million. Also, 18 businesses have since relocated to downtown Oregon City.

But the program’s success doesn’t pay the bills.

“It’s a great program and has worked really well here in Oregon City,” said Lloyd Purdy, the manager of the Main Street Oregon City program. “But you need a sustainable funding stream, and that’s what Oregon City is looking for.”

So Purdy is working with the city to create an overlay property tax for the 90 businesses in the downtown core. The tax is being proposed at 1 percent of a property’s assessed value with a cap of $3,000. It would raise $194,000 to $240,000 and help supplement the annual $50,000 the city has allotted for the program over the next three years.

“There comes a time in these programs where the businesses and property owners that take advantage of the benefits should at least look into helping support it,” said Purdy, who managed a Main Street program in Cortland, N.Y., for three years before coming to Oregon City. “The successful programs are the ones that are supported by everyone involved.”

When managing the Main Street program in Cortland, Purdy and the city discussed the possibility of introducing the same type of funding mechanism.

And even in Portland, program organizers are looking into alternative resources to help maintain the program.

“We know we need to start thinking about long-term stability but for the time being we are focused on getting the programs off the ground,” said Kate Deane, a project manager with the Portland Development Commission, one of the main public forces driving the program.

The city has $500,000 budgeted for the program. Each district gets $30,000 from the city and has to match that with $30,000 raised by the coordinators. After the first year, the program coordinators will have to raise an additional $30,000 to cover operating expenses.

And even if each district comes up with the necessary money, the city isn’t promising that it will continue to provide money in the future.

“The city has it budgeted this year, but with the economic situation at hand, there can’t be any guarantees of what the funding will look like next year or a few years down the road,” Deane said.

Wittenberg and Alberta program organizers are aware of this, but are nevertheless moving forward.

“Getting the funds each year is going to be a task; there’s no doubt about that,” Wittenberg said. “But those challenges are outweighed by the benefits of the program. It brings the community together and lets the community members themselves tell the story of the area and plan out the future of development in it.”

A tax, however, is not the only option.

Albany has a contract in which downtown parking revenues go to its Main Street program. And Boston, which has had a program for nearly 30 years, relies on a real estate portfolio for subsidies.

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