Vertical construction will begin later this week at the Williams & Russell project site, in North Portland. It’s a milestone for the Hill Block development intended to restore a cultural and economic center of the city’s Black community.

Housing will come first. Twenty townhomes with an additional four ground-level units will rise on the north side of the 1.7-acre block bounded by North Williams and Vancouver avenues and Russell and Knott streets — in the Eliot neighborhood.

Crucially, the townhomes will be offered for purchase to residents selected according to the city’s North/Northeast Preference Policy, administered by the Portland Housing Center. The policy aims to restore justice to residents whose homes were razed as part of the 1960s Emanuel Hospital Urban Renewal Project.

The Portland Housing Bureau will provide down-payment assistance to eligible homebuyers. More than 1,200 people initially applied via the North/Northeast Preference Policy, said Dana Fuller Shephard, executive director of the Portland Housing Center.

“We have more people than we have units,” Shephard said.

Homeowners will be able to earn equity over time, and if they choose, eventually sell the homes.

“The homeownership component was something that people really, really wanted to see in the project,” said Bryson Davis, president of Williams & Russell Community Development Corp., the nonprofit group leading the project.

The trade-off between keeping the homes affordable and enabling homeowners to build equity was a keenly debated issue in planning.

“That tension was a key component of a lot of our discussions,” Davis said. “Through the hospital expansion, the community lost a lot of wealth. We leaned towards — and for this project we are doing — the homeowner gets the benefit of their equity.”

However, project team members said they expect most homeowners at Williams & Russell will hold onto the homes long-term. North/Northeast Portland remains the center of the city’s Black community, but homebuying has become difficult amid prices spiraling upward, said Ta’Neshia Renae, chief operations officer of Williams & Russell CDC.

“Really, we’re looking at folks that have historical ties to the community and want to be a part of that,” said Anyeley Hallová, founder and CEO of Portland-based developer Adre.

A second phase will involve the construction of 85 units of subsidized rental housing in family-size configurations. Finally, a 26,000-square-foot business hub, built from cross-laminated timber, will include a mix of affordable office, retail and collaborative space.

The CDC was also able to acquire from Legacy Health a half-block north of the Hill Block that brings the project site to 2.99 acres. In total, the project is expected to cost $16.4 million.

Each project component was designed after an extensive public engagement process. Homeownership, with backyards and parking spaces, was important to Albina residents, and so was affordable rental housing in multibedroom units. Market-rate development has brought a steady supply of studios and one-bedroom apartments, but few larger units.

“The market doesn’t naturally produce the larger-sized units,” Hallová said. “So, the ability to produce those larger units at an affordable price is definitely a desire for the community.”

Vertical construction can begin only now after an extensive environmental remediation process. Legacy Health, which formerly owned the block, provided $10 million for environmental remediation. The Portland Housing Bureau and Prosper Portland also contributed some funding for remediation.

Crews ended up removing 41,000 tons of dirt from the site, Davis said. When the buildings on the Hill Block were demolished in the 1970s, debris from the demolition was used to fill 12-foot-tall basements.

“As you can imagine for buildings that were built in the early 1900s, there were elevated levels of heavy metals and all sorts of other contaminants all around the block,” Davis said.

Also, a gas station once occupied the southwest corner of the block. Decades-old fuel tanks had to be unearthed and removed.

“Despite all of that, it went pretty well,” Davis said.

Project team members are keenly aware that the site in the heart of the former city of Albina has sat vacant for decades, and know how important it is for Portland’s Black community to get it right.

“As a real estate developer and as part of Black community, I knew about the significance of the site to the community, the historical significance, and then also the fact that nothing had transpired on the site for fifty years after it was taken from the community,” Hallová said.

They’ve had plenty of time to think about it: The project team came together in 2021 in response to a request for proposals from the project working group that later transformed into the CDC.

The project is being designed by LEVER Architecture and Hood Design Studio. Colas Construction, Portland’s largest Black-owned contractor, is serving as general contractor.

The project will add housing at a time when state and local leaders say more options are desperately needed. But Williams & Russell means more to its backers than square footage, timber and drywall.

“What we’re bringing back is more than just buildings,” Renae said. “We’re bringing back people and their descendants. We’re bringing back culture.”

The post Williams & Russell set to rise in Portland’s Eliot neighborhood appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

As officials with the 1803 Fund and Black community leaders gathered Tuesday to lay out plans to redevelop Lower Albina, one message rang out: We own it.

Formed in 2023 and backed by a $400 million gift from Nike co-founder Phil Knight, the fund has spent $70 million to purchase two groups of properties in North Portland‘s Albina neighborhood.

Fund leaders laid out plans to transform portions of the neighborhood into a modern “Third Place” — apart from home and work or school — for the Black community to gather.

The properties include grain silos along the Willamette River near the Rose Quarter that will become part of Albina Riverside, a 3-acre site linking Albina to the waterfront. The other major area, known as The Low End, comprises approximately 20 tax lots and more than 7 acres along North Russell Street.

The Low End will have a mix of uses, including housing and spaces for art, culture, business and community initiatives. Plans for Albina Riverside are still being developed.

On Tuesday, the group held a press conference at a former craft brewery, 670 N. Russell St., that it now owns.

“Yes, we are rebuilding Albina,” said Rukaiyah Adams, CEO of the 1803 Fund. “But, really, what we are up to is transforming the region.”

The event functioned as a celebration for Portland’s Black community, and a promise to reinvigorate Albina — a historically Black neighborhood that was subjected to relocations, residential demolitions and racist urban renewal practices in the mid-20th century that made way for major infrastructure including Interstate 5, Veterans Memorial Coliseum and Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.

“We cannot talk about Albina without talking about the pain that we have faced as a community,” said Ed Washington, a longtime resident and former president of the NAACP’s Portland chapter.

While details of the redevelopment were scarce, 1803 Fund officials said it’s critical that Black Portlanders now own much of the neighborhood, and will redevelop it as they wish, without heeding outside expectations about what Albina should or shouldn’t be.

“This is not charity,” Adams said. “This is investment.”

Mayor Keith Wilson sparked an exchange when he thanked the building’s proprietor for allowing the event to be held, apparently not realizing the building was purchased by the 1803 Fund.

“To Mayor Wilson,” Adams said, “we own this building. So, yeah, that’s the thing now.”

Yet a long road lies ahead for Albina boosters. Much of the neighborhood requires environmental remediation. The 1803 Fund released renderings showing landscaped public spaces, but a spokeswoman said it remains to be decided what buildings will be constructed on the properties.

Speakers noted that the announcement came at a precarious moment for Portland. President Trump’s threat to deploy the National Guard in the city’s streets appears to have receded for now, but many stakeholders feel the city still has a target on its back. The Trump administration rescinded funds dedicated to building highway covers over I-5 in Albina.

At the same time, the city’s growth spurt of the “Portlandia” era has stalled, attended by rampant homelessness, widespread commercial real estate vacancies and a general economic malaise.

Adams noted, without naming the president, that the Albina redevelopment comes as Trump builds a “gold ballroom” at the White House.

“This is a very let-them-eat-cake moment,” she said. “We’re about to own the damn cake.”

Wilson and City Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney pledged to support to the plan, saying it could galvanize broader economic development.

“Albina’s renaissance will help fuel Portland’s renaissance,” Wilson said.

The group’s plan “reframes development,” Pirtle-Guiney added.

“It frames it as an act of restoration, an act of renewal,” she said. “This is going to have a transformative impact on our entire community.”

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Albina Vision Trust has received land use and design approval from the Portland Bureau of Development Services for its first project. Albina One represents the first phase of an effort to reimagine Lower Albina as a mixed-income area with housing, commercial spaces, and an abundance of open space.

The new six-and-seven-story building will be located at 253 N. Broadway, between Flint and Wheeler avenues, adjacent to the Paramount Apartments. Albina One’s 94 units will be for individuals and families earning 60 percent of the area median income or less.

LEVER Architecture designed the project for Albina Vision Trust (AVT) in partnership with Edlen & Co. Colas Construction is the general contractor.

Albina One is the start of redevelopment of Lower Albina that, if fully realized, will produce approximately 2,000 housing units, nearly 300,000 square feet of commercial space and 200,000 square feet of community space.

For now, however, Albina One will join the Paramount Apartments as a residential pocket in a primarily industrial area with government offices, entertainment venues and parking. The site will feature 8,500 square feet of outdoor space, including a large plaza that will connect to the Paramount and include pathways that link Flint and Wheeler avenues.

A significant aim of the project team is to make the area feel like an urban residential neighborhood, LEVER Architecture principal Chandra Robinson said. The design focuses on activating the ground floor with many windows, particularly where the Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center and Rosemary Anderson High School will have resident services. Also, the ground floor will have a community space and a laundry room. A fenced playground will be constructed south of the building.

Other project components came straight from the outreach AVT performed for the Albina Vision Community Investment Plan. Those elements include rooftop solar panels and artwork such as a six-story mural (the design isn’t finalized yet) on the building’s exterior facing Wheeler Avenue.

“It was taking all those things that AVT knew that community members would like to see in any development and applying it to this one,” Robinson said.

The blue and gold of Albina One’s exterior were chosen because those colors are prominent in Afrofuturism, she added.

A unique design challenge arose because of the site’s location slightly north of where freeway caps are planned as part of the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. That longtime project is now in the environmental assessment phase with the Federal Highway Administration. As proposed, the caps could support vertical development.

“There really isn’t a good way to design for a context you don’t know,” Robinson said.

However, the Community Investment Plan’s existence helped. The team looked at what the plan could produce in its densest form and used that as a guide for context, she said.

Along with Albina One, other revitalization is under way in North Portland. For example, the Albina Library is being renovated and expanded and the Jefferson High School modernization is in the pipeline.

“There is some reinvestment going on in the neighborhood,” Robinson said, “especially for people of color.”

A building permit for Albina One is under review by BDS. Construction could start as early as this summer.

The post Lower Albina redevelopment poised to advance appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Meyer Memorial Trust will build a new headquarters in Albina, with site preparation and construction to begin in late 2018, the organization announced.

The trust, one of Portland’s most prominent nonprofits, in January purchased an industrial lot at 2045 N. Vancouver Ave. for $4.96 million. The 25,000-square-foot parcel has been the site of Sergeants Towing since 1995.

Local developer Project^ will develop the new headquarters, and Fieldwork Design & Architecture will design the building, which is expected to be about 20,000 square feet.

The project will involve demolishing the existing cinder block and metal sheet structure, but timber supports inside will be “creatively used” in the new design, according to a news release. Initial plans call for a three-story structure.

A Fieldwork partner referred questions about the project to the nonprofit.

Meyer Memorial Trust CEO Doug Stamm acknowledged in a news release Albina’s history of urban renewal and gentrification that drove out many of the neighborhood’s African-American residents. The organization pledged to be “a good neighbor.”

“As new neighbors, we look forward to supporting efforts by many people and organizations, including the Albina Vision Trust, to ensure that as Albina evolves toward an exciting future, it remains an affordable, thriving and diverse central city community,” Stamm stated.

Many of Meyer Memorial Trust’s employees live in North and Northeast Portland, according to the news release.

The Vancouver Avenue property is near Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, Ex Novo Brewing and a CrossFit gym. It’s also close to the Hill Block, a vacant lot owned by Legacy Health that is under consideration for redevelopment by the hospital group and Prosper Portland.

Meyer Memorial Trust will move from its existing, 11,000-square-foot leased office at 425 N.W. 10th St. in the Pearl District. The organization, with 42 employees, anticipates moving into the new Albina office in early 2020.

The Albina property was purchased with money from the nonprofit’s endowment. The organization is considering financing options for the design and construction phases. The property is zoned central employment, with a design overlay (EX-d).

Meyer Memorial Trust has $800 million in assets, and donates to a wide range of causes, including preservation of affordable housing, restoration of the Willamette River watershed and support of rural museums.

In February, Meyer Memorial Trust announced Michelle J. DePass will succeed Stamm as CEO on April 30.

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Redevelopment of a vacant North Portland block near Legacy Emanuel Medical Center will have to wait a bit longer.

The city of Portland is forming a work group to study redevelopment of the 1.7 acre-block in the Albina neighborhood. The move comes after members of Prosper Portland‘s own oversight committee complained they hadn’t been consulted on plans to use urban renewal dollars at the North Portland property.

It also delays bringing the block – bounded by North Williams and Vancouver avenues and Russell and Knott streets – into an urban renewal area that would trigger up to $32 million in available tax-increment financing.

Shawn Uhlman, spokesman for Prosper Portland, said the delay is necessary to make sure members of the North/Northeast Community Development Initiative Oversight Committee are comfortable with the path forward.

“The timing is less important than ensuring what the project working group needs, and what the oversight committee needs, to have their questions answered,” Uhlman said.

Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office is preparing a solicitation for nominations to the work group, spokesman Michael Cox said. The solicitation is expected to be issued Friday.

“The goal of the project working group is just make sure the process is transparent, that it’s community-centered, that there’s meaningful community engagement,” Cox said.

At an Aug. 9 board meeting, Prosper Portland’s board considered adding the Legacy property into the Interstate Corridor urban renewal area. It appeared ready to sail through until several members of the North/Northeast Community Development Initiative Oversight Committee testified that they weren’t consulted about spending plans.

Committee member Chonitia Smith said the African-American community and the oversight committee should be consulted. The oversight committee was formed to oversee allocation of the $32 million in tax-increment financing.

Rahsaan Stuart Muhammad, a representative of the Emanuel Displaced Persons Association, said he was opposed to anything other than housing being constructed on the property.

Since that meeting, little progress has been made.

Vicki Guinn, spokeswoman for Legacy Emanuel, said the project work group would focus on the African-American community, but not exclusively.

“Part of the project is really engaging with the community to get input into what people would like to see there,” Guinn said. “So, yes, we’re gathering names and organizations that we would like to see be a part of this process.”

Prosper Portland’s goal is “really to try to do a community-led redevelopment of the property,” said Tory Campbell, entrepreneurship and community economic development manager for the city agency.

There is no set date to have the work group report back to Prosper Portland’s board, Campbell said.

“It’ll be sometime, obviously, in the next year,” he said.

The property was razed around 1975 as part of urban renewal efforts that destroyed scores of black-owned businesses and homes. The Hill Block Building, a commercial hub for the black community, was demolished.

The property has since sat vacant. Last summer, Prosper Portland Executive Director Kimberly Branam discovered a 1980 deed provision that gave Legacy Health until 1990 to redevelop the property. No action had been taken in the 27 years since the deadline passed.

After realizing the oversight, Prosper Portland officials began discussing the property with Legacy Health, and the Daily Journal of Commerce submitted a public records request for information about the property. The agency denied the records request, but shortly thereafter announced a partnership with Legacy Health to move toward redevelopment of the block.

The post Work group to study North Portland property appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider has expanded into Portland’s Overlook neighborhood, signing a lease for more than 21,000 square feet at 1211 N. Loring St.

The cider-maker also announced a major investment from Shobi Dahl, co-founder of Dave’s Killer Bread.

Reverend Nat’s, founded by Nat West, opened in 2011. The business moved to its current location at 1813 N.E. Second Ave. in 2012. The company expects to transfer operations to the new facility in early 2018.

Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider was advised by Jake Bigby of CBRE and Leigh Gill of Immix Law Group in the transaction.

“My team has been looking for a larger cidery for more than a year, but we had very high expectations, including staying in the historic Albina township of Portland,” West stated in a news release. “Shobi approached me about a building he was looking to lease to an entrepreneur and we immediately found common ground. I couldn’t be happier with the arrangement.”

Reverend Nat’s expects to be able to produce nearly 25,000 barrels annually in the new facility because of additional tank capacity. The cidery produced 4,500 barrels in 2016 and is on track to make 5,500 barrels this year.

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In the early 1970s, the city of Portland, in concert with Emanuel Hospital’s expansion plans, leveled the commercial center of the historically black Albina neighborhood in north Portland with an eye toward future hospital development.

Urban renewal was regarded as a necessary cure for an area that was seen as blighted. But the cure wrought by Portland and hospital officials left a key urban property neglected for decades.

In 1980, the Portland Development Commission sold the 1.7-acre block bounded by North Williams and Vancouver avenues and Russell and Knott streets to what was then Emanuel Hospital (now part of Legacy Health) for less than $400,000 with a covenant to develop the property according to an urban renewal plan.

The planned hospital expansion never happened. Federal grants to build hospitals dried up, and Emanuel expanded elsewhere, while the PDC (now Prosper Portland) turned its attention to other projects.

The property sat largely untouched for 37 years as Portland grew around it, providing a visible reminder of urban neglect, broken promises and a decades-long failure of leadership by two powerful Portland institutions.

A 10-year deadline for Emanuel to begin redevelopment of the property came and went in 1990 with no apparent notice, much less action, from city officials. The parcel was used at times for construction staging, neighbors said.

Now, Legacy Health, Prosper Portland and city officials are left wrestling with the mistakes of the past. They have few answers for why the heart of an African-American business district was demolished and left vacant for more than four decades.

“That used to be the heart of the historical black community there,” Commissioner Nick Fish said. “For a long time, there’s been a desire to develop that piece of property with a heavy emphasis on black-owned businesses. There have been different ideas and visions floated. I have long thought that if we could develop that with Legacy … it would be a big win for that community. That’s been a vision for about a decade.”

Now, it’s happening. Legacy Health and Prosper Portland are set to announce today an effort to develop the property. The two sides are establishing a work group with community leaders to explore options for the site.

Prosper Portland’s board will vote during an August 9 meeting whether to bring the property into the Interstate Urban Renewal Area, which would free up tax-increment financing for predevelopment studies and development work.

The partnership comes after intensive discussions between Prosper Portland and Legacy Health officials in recent months.

The parcel offers 222,000 developable square feet, according to a Prosper Portland estimate.

The work group will host public forums and engage in community outreach to help determine the best use for their property. Eventually, Prosper Portland and Legacy Health will seek a development partner.

“We’re committed to having a transparent, community-centered process,” said Kimberly Branam, Prosper Portland’s executive director.

The project is likely to include some use by Legacy Health, along with a mix of affordable housing, retail and possibly office space.

The work group will “tease out the proposal,” Branam said.

“I think right now we’re all anticipating we would have an external development partner, and that this really will evolve over time,” she said.

The Urban League of Portland has its office directly across the street from the vacant parcel. Maurice Henderson, chief of staff for Mayor Ted Wheeler, said the organization has been involved in ongoing discussions about the parcel. Nkenge Harmon Johnson, president and chief executive of the African-American service and advocacy group, declined interview requests made to her office.

The city’s urban renewal effort came as American cities were riven by riots and racial tension. The Eliot neighborhood lost half its residents – approximately 3,000 people – between 1960 and 1970. City leaders feared the blight would spread to adjacent areas.

Dozens of residents and businesses were forcibly relocated as part of the Emanuel Hospital Urban Renewal Project.

The Hill Block building was a focal point of the neighborhood, fronting the corner of Russell Street and Williams Avenue and sprawling down both sides of the block. It was named for Charles H. Hill, who served as Albina’s first mayor before the property was incorporated into Portland.

The building hosted a drugstore, a market and a cleaners on the ground floor and second-floor apartments above. In that manner, the building prefigured the mixed-use projects popular in urban corridors today.

The building was demolished in 1975 and its distinctive onion-shaped cupola was salvaged to be placed atop a gazebo in Dawson Park. Dozens of black-owned homes and businesses nearby were pushed out.

After the city cleared the property, it was eventually sold to Emanuel Lutheran for $396,776.92.

The 1980 deed between the PDC and Legacy Health included a provision saying the hospital board “shall use the land for the purposes designated in the urban renewal plan, and shall begin building of its improvements within a reasonable amount of time.” Portions of the agreement were set to expire on July 29, 1990, and the PDC reserved the right to enforce the curing of any breach of the agreement.

That date came and went. The land has since sat vacant for 27 more years.

“Folks in our office are aware of that one component and there could be some debate (of the terms of the deed) if that was necessary,” said Brian Terrett, Legacy Health’s director of public and community relations. “What’s more important is the fact that we’ve come together and we’ve said we want to find a way to be sure that property honored the history and the culture of African-Americans in Portland. We’ve always been interested in that. And so the timing on this is perfect.”

The terms of the 1980 property deed are in the past, Terrett said.

“So rather than thinking about what was written then and how and who says what, why don’t we just look forward?” he said.

The coming community debate over plans for the property is likely to reopen old wounds. Mayor Ted Wheeler, in his State of the City address in March, sought to acknowledge the pain of the African-American community’s relocation.

“Development in the Albina community drove mostly black people from their homes to make room for freeways, stadiums and hospitals,” Wheeler said then. “These new developments were seen at the time as representing progress, but the toll taken on the black community that was displaced was willfully ignored by city leaders.”

Redeveloping the parcel can’t fully atone for the past, Henderson said.

“It’s really important for the community to recognize that this won’t make up for all past ills,” he said. “This is certainly something to look prospectively as a really positive step about what Portland will be going forward, and particularly this location in north-northeast Portland.”

Neighbors are interested in seeing something done with the vacant land. Allan Rudwick, chairman of the Eliot Neighborhood Association’s land-use committee, said redevelopment of the property would fill a hole in the commercial area.

“That’s really exciting,” Rudwick said.

He added ruefully, “They probably could have done that anytime in the last 20 years.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the demolition of the Hill Block building was carried out by the city of Portland.

Time line

1915 – Emanuel Hospital moves to Albina from a downtown location.

1930s-1950 – Albina grows as a center for Portland’s black community.

1962 – The Portland Development Commission publishes the Central Albina Study, laying out plans for urban renewal of the now-“blighted” neighborhood. Emanuel Hospital notifies the city of its interest in expanding, using the urban renewal program.

1967 – Emanuel Hospital administrators announce plans to develop a modern medical campus. Portland City Council formally approves an urban renewal project.

1970 – Emanuel completes the first two phases of an expansion plan.

1971 – The PDC begins acquiring and demolishing Albina properties.

1973 – Emanuel cancels the third phase of redevelopment, citing lack of funds. The cancelation leaves a key parcel vacant.

1980 – The Portland Development Commission sells the Albina parcel to Emanuel Hospital for less than $400,000.

1990 – The deed deadline to redevelop the property expires. No action is taken.

2017 – Legacy Health and Prosper Portland announce a partnership to redevelop the property.

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