Grand plans are being formed for Portland’s Albina community, and the Historic Landmarks Commission got its first look at them on Monday. The concept is to redevelop and revitalize the disconnected area between the Lloyd District and the Willamette River.

“The thing to take away is that the city had a grid,” Rukaiyah Adams, chief investment officer for the Meyer Memorial Trust, told the commission.

Getting back to that grid is largely the idea for Albina Vision, which calls for new mixed-use development scattered among public open spaces and parks stretching potentially all the way to the riverfront. It even calls for “capping” portions of Interstate 5 that run through the neighborhood and building above the freeway. If that were to happen, however, work likely wouldn’t wrap up until at least 2027.

Hennebery Eddy Architects is leading design efforts for Albina Vision, an effort that began in 2015. Project partners include the city of Portland, Portland Public Schools, the Meyer Memorial Trust, the Portland Trail Blazers and many others.

The Oregon Department of Transportation and the Portland Bureau of Transportation, meanwhile, are developing plans for the expansion of Interstate 5 in the Rose Quarter. That work is expected to tie in with new development.

Albina Vision has four main components, Hennebery Eddy founding principal Tim Eddy said Monday. The most important, he said, is the connection to the Willamette River and how that can drive the designs of public spaces.

“These sites are really the only remaining places on the east side of downtown in the central city where there is a potential to create a significant public space that has access to the river,” Eddy said.

Some renderings for the district show that portions of streets could be pedestrianized, while mixed-use high-rises would be built along those corridors.

Another component is the need to establish a vibrant public realm based on public spaces, whether on the riverfront or not.

The other two components are incorporation of the area north of Veterans Memorial Coliseum, including a large parcel of land owned by Portland Public Schools, and tying the entire area back into the eastside grid.

“It was tempting to go beyond these areas,” Eddy acknowledged. “But we had to draw a boundary.”

Albina Vision also represents an opportunity to right historical wrongs of decades ago, when numerous buildings in the largely African-American community were razed to make way for the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and other development. By some estimates, more than 800 homes were demolished in a roughly 100-acre area.

“There have been lots of conversations about what should happen,” Adams told the Historic Landmarks Commission. “It took us a year of talking to each other and learning the history before we could really talk about the really hard history about why that neighborhood was bulldozed. We wanted to learn a little more about the people who lived there.”

The area once was the heart of Portland’s cultural scene, and Albina Vision plans call for at least partial restoration of that dynamic. Recreating the past isn’t realistic, she added. But the future certainly can be informed by it.

“This entire area was disconnected from the rest of the city due to the 1950s and 1960s decisions,” she said. “We realized we couldn’t define what would be there, so we wanted to set out a series of values to drive what would happen there that we would hope to inform the process.”

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The has formally rescinded its offer to purchase the Portland Public Schools headquarters to build a baseball stadium.

Portland Diamond Project officials said Wednesday they would instead make way for the , a plan by civic boosters to reconnect the Rose Quarter to the street grid and reintroduce housing to the neighborhood.

The project team had in April offered $80 million to purchase the 10.5-acre property that houses school district offices and the Blanchard Education Service Center.

“Although we were initially drawn to this property for its close-in location, access to transportation and its potential to be transformative to the east bank of the Willamette, it became apparent to us that the Albina Vision Trust’s board of directors has a long-range plan for the building and the immediate area that will serve the overall community in a very meaningful way,” Portland Diamond Project CEO Craig Cheek stated in a news release. “Albina Vision’s focus on diversity and social equity is aligned with our mission, and we are putting our full support behind it.”

School district officials had indicated they were in no rush to sell the property. The district in May issued a request for proposals for a commercial real estate broker.

The Portland Diamond Project was likewise unable to scoop up the ESCO Corp. property, which was sold to a group of real estate investors. The 22.45-acre, Northwest Portland industrial site was purchased for $33 million.

The Portland Diamond Project’s statement said the group would announce property options for a ballpark within Portland city limits “in a few weeks.” Speculation has centered on riverfront sites including Zidell Yards and the Port of Portland‘s Terminal 2 area.

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A group of business, civic and philanthropic leaders are proposing a long-term plan to remake the Rose Quarter by reintroducing housing, a street grid and open space into the Northeast Portland entertainment district.

Members of an informal group are pushing what they call the “Albina Vision.” The group set out to reimagine the Rose Quarter, assuming only that the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum would remain as anchors in the area. Everything else was subject to possible changes.

The group is presenting an early-stage conceptual plan to public officials, business leaders, community groups and media organizations. It imagines a sweeping future vision for the Rose Quarter that better integrates the 90-acre area into surrounding neighborhoods.

Urbanists have long complained that the Rose Quarter functions as an island that’s largely removed from the rest of Portland. On nights when there are no events such as a Portland Trail Blazers or Winterhawks game, or a big-ticket concert, the area can be empty and lifeless.

“It’s severed from the communities around it by infrastructure, and it lacks a 24-hour population,” said Tom Cody, a developer who is part of the Albina Vision group. “There are no people there. It’s basically designed to accept and release large numbers of people for events.”

The capacity for development is potentially among the largest in the Portland-metro area.

“There’s opportunity for 7 million square feet – or more – of new development,” said Hennebery Eddy Architects President Tim Eddy, who is involved in the Albina Vision.

In part, the Albina Vision seeks to mitigate past wrongs. The area now home to the Rose Quarter was once part of Albina, a largely black neighborhood. Several blocks were razed as part of city-led urban renewal efforts. Homes, businesses and churches were destroyed.

The Rose Quarter also interrupted East Portland’s street grid. The Albina Vision plans to restore some – but not all – of the grid.

“That grid was previously houses, it was apartment buildings, it was churches, it was commercial space,” Eddy said. “It was a full working, living neighborhood community.”

Apartments are a key piece of the Albina Vision. At present, there’s only one low-income building on the northern periphery of the Rose Quarter.

“So one of the cornerstones of the plan is we bring housing – a lot of housing – and people on the full income spectrum deep into the district, and that will bring a heartbeat to a place that was separated from its people,” Cody said.

The Albina Vision group was started by Rukaiyah Adams, chief investment officer of Meyer Memorial Trust and chairwoman of the Oregon Investment Council, and Jim Francesconi, vice president of public policy at Moda Health, and now includes about a dozen community leaders. Cody and Eddy quickly came on board, as did Zari Santner, a former director of Portland Parks and Recreation. Others include Gregg Kantor, the retired chief executive of NW Natural, and Michael Alexander, retired chief executive of the Urban League of Portland.

“We agreed that there needed to be a comprehensive look at development opportunities in that area,” Santner said.

The group hopes to put an overall plan in place before any large-scale development – such as a corporate campus – comes to the Rose Quarter.

It remains to be seen whether the group can persuade the major players, including city commissioners, the Portland Trail Blazers, Moda Health and others, to buy into their vision. But members said the mayor’s office and the Trail Blazers had given their blessing to investigate a large-scale vision for the Rose Quarter.

Much of the land in the area is owned either by the city of Portland or Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc.

Mayor Ted Wheeler said he’s had conversations with the Albina Vision group.

“I like a lot of elements of that package, including taking advantage of a reconnection in our grid system, and a focus on housing and a focus on rebuilding a community that was really torn asunder through urban development,” he said.

But, Wheeler added, the city is a long way from any formal plans to redevelop the Rose Quarter.

“At this point, we’re not really settling on – we’re way premature to say we’ve settled on any concept or idea around this development site,” he said. “There’s a lot of pre-work that still needs to happen. But I know those players. I have confidence in their vision. I support the premise behind their vision, and I’m glad that they’re engaging this conversation with us and the community at large.”

Trail Blazers spokesman Michael Lewellen said the organization had no comment on the Albina Vision.

“There’s nothing to say at this point,” he said.

Vulcan Inc. did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Albina Vision members are investigating possible governance structures to ensure their plan influences future development there. They’re looking to form a nonprofit governance group modeled after those in other cities, such as New York’s Battery Park City Authority, to oversee and guide development in the district.

The Albina Vision takes more ambitious steps than the city’s North/Northeast Quadrant Plan, which was a precursor to the city’s comprehensive plan that will take effect Jan. 1, 2018.

The Albina Vision envisions bulldozing existing parking garages and then constructing parking underground. The group is also looking into building large “lids” or “caps” – structures that would extend over Interstate Avenue and rail lines between Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the Willamette River. The caps would be covered in park-like open space, reaching the river.

“Nobody had a plan,” Eddy said. “So we created a plan.”

Ethan Seltzer, Portland State University professor emeritus of urban studies and planning, raised questions as to whether undergoing an expensive remake of the Rose Quarter should be a priority for Portland.

“If you really wanted to draw African-American families back into north-northeast Portland, what could you do with that money?” he said, suggesting new schools as one option.

Urban design isn’t the solution to every problem, Seltzer said.

“It all sounds great, but I’d be a little careful of the old saw: If your only tool is a hammer, all your problems look like nails,” he said. “Are we buying into something before there’s been an adequate explanation of the options?”

Reaction to the Albina Vision has been overwhelmingly positive, Santner said.

“We are very, very encouraged by the reception this is getting from various groups,” she said. “People like the idea.”

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