Affordable housing and Lake Oswego might seem to be a contradiction in terms, but in one of Oregon’s most expensive and exclusive suburbs, officials broke ground Wednesday on a small apartment project dedicated to providing units at below-market rates.

A few dozen dignitaries and industry officials busted out ceremonial golden shovels for El Nido, a 55-unit development on Boones Ferry Road near Lake Oswego’s Lake Grove neighborhood.

The $32 million project is Lake Oswego’s second affordable housing project funded by Metro bonds. The first, Mercy Greenbrae at Marylhurst Commons, was completed with 100 units in May 2024.

“I’m very pleased that this project is in Lake Oswego,” Clackamas County Commissioner Ben West said. “Affordable housing sites should be distributed throughout the county.”

Metro purchased the site in 2023 from the city of Lake Oswego for $2.3 million. Before that, the parcel had long served as construction staging for the Boones Ferry Road project, Lake Oswego Mayor Joe Buck said.

Using the land for affordable housing is “life changing, and it’s the most impactful thing we could do,” he said.

Construction commenced after developer Hacienda Community Development Corp. successfully legally challenged a decades-old 25-foot setback requirement from an adjacent road that severely constrained the site’s buildable area.

“I thought, we’re going to be left with a dining room table in the middle,” joked Ernesto Fonseca, chief executive of Hacienda CDC. “Clearly, that’s not going to work.”

The building will outlive today’s troubled times, he said, noting “so much persecution of minorities in this country.”

“This will pass,” Fonseca said, while the building will continue to provide affordable housing well into the future. “This will be here for a long, long time ahead.”

El Nido’s design team is a partnership of Mackenzie and Access Architecture. Colas Construction is serving as general contractor alongside subcontractors including J.A. Mechanical and SOS Exterior Remodeling.

Andrew Colas, CEO of Colas Construction, recalled that Hacienda CDC first hired the Black-owned contractor in the late 1990s. Hacienda took a chance on Colas Construction for a project with two six-unit buildings when Colas had not yet tackled a project that large, he said.

“There was always an RFP written that said you shouldn’t try,” Colas said, referring to a request for proposals.

Colas said he had worked with the subcontractors on increasing their capacity to take on bigger jobs, including co-signing for a line of credit in one case.

El Nido — Spanish for “The Nest” — is part of Metro‘s drive to build thousands of affordable housing units funded by the $652.8 million regional housing bond passed by voters in 2018. The regional government is on track to build 5,600 affordable housing units, well above the initial goal of 3,900 homes, Metro Councilor Christine Lewis said.

“We’re overdelivering,” she said Wednesday. “We’re killing it.”

Ten units at El Nido will provide permanent supportive housing with services for residents. One apartment, to be used by the property manager, is not a regulated affordable unit, leaving El Nido with 54 affordable units.

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A Boones Ferry Road improvement , planned near Tryon Creek State Natural Area, has been on a Portland Bureau of Environmental Services list of priorities since the 1990s. Now it has been delayed once again.

Plans call for replacing a metal culvert underneath Boones Ferry Road with a bridge, as well as other work. The construction phase of the $6.4 million project was supposed to begin in January 2018. However, because of drawn-out design and procurement processes, and a tight work window, construction now is not scheduled to begin until January 2019.

“We have been working on a pretty tight construction timeline,” said Lisa Moscinski, an environmental specialist with the Bureau of Environmental Services (BES). “The timing issue has to do with the water work window, which is July 15th to September 30th.”

Work is allowed only during that time in order to avoid harming fish populations in the area. The goal of the project is relatively simple: improve water flow through the area to allow better drainage of stormwater.

“It’s a priority because of the undersized and aging culvert,” Moscinski said. “When it rains, the water rises significantly.”

A lack of money has been a major source of delays over the years. The design phase started in 2013, but was first put on hold that year and then again in 2014 because of insufficient funding. Then in 2015 the city secured the final $650,000 needed to allow scheduling to begin; the money came from Metro, via its Nature in Neighborhoods program.

Also, the project’s complexity required more planning time. Decades ago, when Boones Ferry Road was built over a confluence of running water, no bridge was included; instead, fill dirt was used to cover a metal culvert allowing water to flow underneath. However, the fill dirt was contaminated with petroleum products and now must be excavated and disposed of.

Figuring out how to deal with the contamination took time. BES officials decided to build a bridge to accommodate wildlife, drivers and pedestrians, and brought BergerABAM aboard to design it. Bridge construction will require closing the road for up to seven months. That led to a study of ways to divert the approximately 18,000 motor vehicle drivers who use the stretch of road each day.

The alternate route that was chosen takes traffic west on Southwest Stephenson Street and then north on Southwest 35th Avenue. The route passes through a neighborhood with an elementary and a middle school, which led to discussions with the Portland Bureau of Transportation and neighborhood associations.

The project also will provide an opportunity to connect regional trails to those in the Tryon Creek State Natural Area. That required coordination with Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. Plus, a variety of utilities must be moved during construction, requiring even more planning time.

Currently, BES hopes to get bids from contractors in early spring 2018.

“It is a pretty significant project,” Moscinski said. “It takes a bit of time when there is this much design work involved.”

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