Developer Walt Bowen has unloaded a long-held multifamily property in Portland’s West Hills for $80.75 million.

Prime Residential snapped up the 261-unit Sunset Summit Apartments. The sale equates to $309,387 per unit. BPM Real Estate Group was the seller.

“The sale represents the first time the property has traded hands in over 25 years,” Anthony Palladino, vice president of Institutional Property Advisors, a division of Marcus & Millichap, stated in a news release. “Sunset Summit is a unique asset, featuring low-density construction with views of the Tualatin Valley from most units.”

Palladino and IPA’s Giovanni Napoli, Philip Assouad, Ryan Dinius and Sidney Warsinske represented the seller. BPM is also the developer of the 35-story Block 216 Ritz-Carlton project in downtown Portland, among other real estate ventures.

Sunset Summit, at 7400 S.W. Barnes Road, was built in 1989 on 31 acres and renovated in 2014, IPA stated in a news release. The complex is located close to Sunset Corridor employers Nike and Intel, and within a short drive from downtown Portland.

Prime Residential, based in Los Angeles, holds three other multifamily properties in the Portland area: Rock Creek 185, The Frank Estate and Wimbledon Square.

The post West Hills apartment complex purchased appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

How about an affordable condo in the same building as a Ritz-Carlton hotel?

The developers of the 35-story being built in downtown Portland have indicated to city officials that they will offer price-restricted units within the $600 million building to meet inclusionary housing requirements. That’s a reversal from earlier plans to instead pay the Portland Housing Bureau a fee in lieu estimated at $7 million to $8 million.

The units are proposed as for-sale condos, not rental apartments. The only previous Portland project to bring to market for-sale condo units with inclusionary housing restrictions was a Habitat for Humanity project, stated Martha Calhoon, a spokeswoman for the Housing Bureau.

BPM Real Estate Group has indicated it will allot 20 percent of the Block 216 units to be affordable at 80 percent of area median income. With 138 units in the massive mixed-use tower, 28 would be designated as affordable, according to the Housing Bureau.

The choice raises the prospect that affordable-housing tenants will not only share a building with Ritz-Carlton hotel guests and office tenants, but also floors with luxury condo buyers. That will make the market-rate condos a tough sell, said Brad Golik, a Luxe Christie’s International Real Estate broker who specializes in luxury condos.

“That really takes away from the lure of the Ritz-Carlton, quite honestly,” he said. “People are buying the exclusivity of it, and allowing affordable housing takes away from that.”

Based on 2020 data, prices would be set at $226,404 for a studio unit, $250,449 for a one-bedroom unit and $318,664 for a two-bedroom unit. Those prices are pegged to annual incomes ranging from $51,600 to $66,320. Any mortgage payments would depend on buyer financing.

That compares to prices for the market-rate units of about $1.6 million for a one-bedroom unit to upwards of $7 million for top-floor penthouses.

Perception-sensitive luxury real-estate buyers may shy away from the building, Golik said.

“Who’s going to pay those prices if they don’t have that exclusivity they expected with the Ritz-Carlton brand?” he said. “I don’t think that’s a win for the people buying it, quite honestly.”

BPM Real Estate Group, led by local developer Walt Bowen, did not respond to messages seeking comment via a representative.

Listing agent Sarita Dua of Keller Williams Realty declined to comment.

Last year, Bowen’s group sent investors some documents forecasting prices of $1,350 to $1,900 per square foot for the condos, The Oregonian reported. But a lot has happened since, and the market and perception of living and working downtown has changed dramatically.

Not only has the deadly coronavirus made sharing floors with others seem unappealing, but the virus and ongoing protests have curtailed retail business and turned downtown streets lifeless, at least temporarily.

“The idea of living or working downtown is very different today than it was before George Floyd,” Cairn Pacific multifamily developer Noel Johnson said, referring to the death of a Minneapolis man that sparked nationwide protests. “And so, in the face of that uncertainty, it makes sense not to incur the extra $8 million paid to the city.”

Sensationalistic media coverage of the sometimes-violent protests in downtown Portland hasn’t helped. One prospective East Coast buyer who was interested in the condos held off while watching the protests unfold on TV, Golik said.

“They’re painting a picture that the city is burning down,” he said. “It’s not that way everywhere in the city, but it’s what he’s seeing, and it’s put a negative feeling on moving to Portland.”

Block 216, which will be one of Portland’s tallest buildings upon completion, attracted blue-chip brands such as Ritz-Carlton and an opportunity zone fund managed by Baker Tilly Capital. Mosaic Real Estate Investors contributed a $460 million, four-year construction loan.

Providing affordable housing on-site also means Bowen’s group will have fewer condos to sell at top-of-market prices during a period of economic uncertainty. If the project team sets aside 20 percent of units as affordable, 110 units would be available for luxury buyers.

Luxury condo buyers face no great rush to snap up a property, Golik said.

“For many of them, it’s a second (or) third home,” he said. “They can be patient. With what’s going in the city, they will probably be much more patient, I would guess.”

The post Luxurious building set to be more inclusive appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

As Portland developer Walt Bowen builds one downtown tower, he’s exiting another.

The office space within the 19-story Broadway Tower has sold to Principal Real Estate Investors for $132.3 million. The price equates to $756 per square foot.

The sale comprises 175,000 square feet of office space on floors nine through 19. The office space was 99 percent leased to tenants including Amazon, Markowitz Herbold, Cable Huston, Chicago Title and Lawyers Title.

The seller was a limited liability company, BDC/Broadway Office, linked to Bowen. His BPM Real Estate Group opened the building in November 2018. BPM is the developer of the Block 216 mixed-use tower now under construction in downtown Portland.

The transaction closed in early March. The purchase does not include the Radisson RED hotel on the first eight floors of Broadway Tower, which is located at 1455 S.W. Broadway, near Portland State University.

The buyer, Principal Real Estate Investors is based in Des Moines, Iowa; it’s a group within Principal Global Investors.

Newmark Knight Frank represented the seller. The sale includes “some of the very highest quality office space that Portland’s seen,” said Nick Kucha, an NKF vice chairman based in Portland.

“There have been very few high-quality modern office towers built in Portland in the last few years,” he said.

Because of that, Broadway Tower attracted high-quality tenants and eager buyers, he said.

Besides Kucha, James Childress (managing director) and Jeff Hodson (director) represented the seller in cooperation with Kevin Shannon (co-head of U.S. capital markets) and James Ikeguchi (senior financial analyst). Principal Real Estate Investors represented itself.

Available office space in the building was being offered at $35 per square foot on a triple-net basis.

The post Iowa-based firm buys prime Portland office space appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A shoring and excavation permit was issued Tuesday for the Block 216 project, allowing work to begin on the 35-story, 460-foot-tall tower in downtown Portland.

Excavators will have to go deep enough to make room for five floors of underground parking.

Block 216 will be the tallest building constructed in Portland since 460-foot-tall Park Avenue West was completed in 2016. The only taller buildings in the city will be the Wells Fargo Center, U.S. Bancorp Tower and KOIN Center.

The $600 million modern concrete and glass tower will have approximately 844,117 square feet of interior space, including Ritz-Carlton hotel rooms and condominiums, and offices. A food hall is planned for the ground floor along Southwest Ninth Avenue, where the Green Loop is expected to materialize eventually.

A spokesman for developer Walt Bowen’s BPM Real Estate Group could not immediately be reached for comment.

The project team hosted a ceremonial ground-breaking event earlier this month.

The full block at Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues and Alder and Washington streets was until June 30 home to Portland’s largest food-cart pod, with more than 50 carts.

�ճ����Portland Design Commission���������DZ������GBD Architects‘ design in December. The project team also includes general contractor Howard S. Wright, a division of Balfour Beatty; interior designer HKS Architects and landscape architect PLACE. The Goodman family’s Downtown Development Group owns the property, and has agreed to a long-term ground lease.

The post Block 216 project team receives first permit appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Earlier this month, on a temporary stage set up on the Block 216 parking lot for a ground-breaking ceremony, an investment manager pitched to an audience of potential investors and VIPs an opportunity zone fund for the 35-story tower in downtown Portland.

Lenders and investment managers from San Francisco and Philadelphia discussed the $600 million project, the scale of which had attracted national capital. Mayor Ted Wheeler heaped praise upon the project. Meanwhile, a sleek, black Bentley sat parked where only days earlier an Iraqi food cart had been selling $8 shawarma.

An 844,117-square-foot tower with a Ritz-Carlton hotel and condos may not be the type of urban renewal foreseen by advocates of opportunity zone tax breaks, but it’s the type of project attracting investment.

It’s unclear how much of a role the Block 216 opportunity zone fund is playing in the project. Mosaic Real Estate Investors previously announced a $460 million, four-year construction loan. Terms of Ritz-Carlton’s deal have not been disclosed.

Tracey Nguyen, a partner at Baker Tilly Capital in Philadelphia, is managing the Block 216 opportunity zone fund. She referred requests for comment to Pat Walsh, a spokesman for developer Walt Bowen’s BPM Real Estate Group. Walsh declined to comment on the project’s financing.

Nationally, it’s difficult to assess how opportunity zone funds are functioning, who is using them, which zones are attracting registered funds or how much money they’re raising.

Opportunity zone funds are not subject to public disclosure, and there appears to be no comprehensive list or database of registered funds.

Opportunity zone funds stem from a federal tax law enacted in December 2017. The funds provide tax benefits for long-term asset holders. After 10 years, investors don’t have to pay any tax on capital gains realized for a property.

It was pitched as a boon for places passed over by the long economic expansion. Opportunity zones are “designed to spur economic development and job creation in distressed communities,” according to the Treasury Department.

Portland’s opportunity zones drew national interest because they cover much of the city’s most desirable real estate, including portions of downtown, the Pearl District and the inner Central Eastside. Yet, so far, opportunity zone activity appears to be modest.

“It hasn’t been a tsunami of opportunity zone funds, but I continue to see activity there,” said Dan Eller, a tax attorney with Schwabe, Williamson and Wyatt.

Eller said timing has been a deterrent for some clients who had considered opportunity zone funds.

“Some people had transactions that were ongoing that happened to be in opportunity zones, and looked into doing an opportunity zone fund, but just the timing of connecting investors with their project didn’t work, and so the fund didn’t take off,” he said.

Sturgeon Development Partners has raised $8 million for its opportunity zone fund; the firm’s goal is $330 million. The fund is backing construction of a 126-room hotel in downtown Salem. Demolition began at the site on July 15.

“Interest has been very steady,” co-founder Vanessa Sturgeon said.

More Sturgeon Development Partners fund projects lie in the future, she added.

“We expect to leave the fund open for the next four years or so, and continue to take investments on a rolling basis,” she said.

Sturgeon is eyeing Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District for a second project: a seven-story office building to be constructed with cross-laminated timber. She declined to reveal the property’s precise location.

The Sturgeon Development Partners opportunity zone fund is one of a handful backing local projects. The Goodman family’s Downtown Development Group is working to form single-asset funds for both the Eleven West mixed-use tower at Southwest 11th Avenue and Washington Street, and the PAE Living Building at Southwest Second Avenue and Pine Street, co-President Greg Goodman said.

The Eleven West project will involve an opportunity zone fund in a 50-50 arrangement with a partner, said Goodman, who declined to identify the other investor. Construction of the project, which won Design Commission approval in December 2017, has not begun yet.

Eleven West vested before inclusionary housing rules required developers to provide below-market-rate multifamily units. The project wouldn’t be financially possible today, Goodman said.

“There hasn’t been a new high-rise in downtown Portland in 28 months with inclusionary housing,” he said. “While the opportunity zoning is good, it doesn’t offset the inclusionary zoning on the high-rise. The inclusionary zoning has shut that market down.”

Some investors have shied away from investing in multi-asset opportunity zone funds, fearing a lack of control or oversight compared to single-asset funds. A potential stumbling block is that investors must also be prepared to pay income tax on deferred gain in 2026.

In May, a bipartisan group in Congress introduced companion bills to require data collecting and reporting that was stripped from the original opportunity zone legislation. The bills were referred to the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees and have not advanced.

The post Opportunity zone funds’ role is opaque appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The developer of the 35-story tower planned on Block 216, in downtown Portland, has scheduled a ceremonial ground-breaking event for later this week, but real movement of dirt will have to wait on permits.

An excavation permit for the project remains under review, said Alex Cousins, spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Development Services.

The applicant is still in the process of obtaining consent forms from neighboring property owners for right-of-way encroachments necessary for the shoring process, Cousins said Tuesday.

“That process is still unfolding, and they’re still waiting on some additional permits from (the Portland Bureau of Transportation) and (Bureau of Environmental Services) for water,” Cousins said. “Hopefully they can get going sometime this summer.”

“It’s all happening,” he added. “It’s just not quite there yet to get an excavator out there yet.”

The ceremonial event is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on Friday.

On Monday, Mosaic Real Estate Investors announced an affiliate has provided $460 million in senior construction financing for the mixed-use tower. The four-year loan, along with Ritz-Carlton‘s agreement to take hotel and condo space in the tower, suggests developer Walt Bowen’s BPM Real Estate Group has the necessary funding in place.

“The high-leverage loan request, in and of itself, made this a very complex financing,” Alex Ovalle, managing director for the lender based in Calabasas, California, stated in a news release. “It was made even more complicated given that it is also the first development of its kind in Portland to offer this mix of uses. However, we were able to approach and understand the valuation of each of the separate components. Combined with the strength of sponsorship, it created a situation that was perfect for us.”

The loan pitch went to market in late February. George Smith Partners Principal and Managing Director Malcolm Davies arranged the financing along with Senior Vice President Zachary Streit.

The 460-foot-tall building will include a 251-room Ritz-Carlton hotel, 138 Ritz-Carlton condominiums, 160,000 square feet of office space and 7,800 square feet of ground-level retail space, along with four and a half stories of parking below ground.

The Portland Design Commission approved GBD Architects‘ design in December. The project team also includes general contractor Howard S. Wright, a division of Balfour Beatty; interior designer HKS Architects and landscape architect PLACE. The Goodman family’s Downtown Development Group owns the property, and has agreed to a long-term ground lease.

More than 50 food carts were evicted from the block on June 30 to clear the way for construction. The development will also eliminate surface parking spots.

The project is subject to Portland’s inclusionary housing ordinance. Instead of providing affordable units within the building, BPM representatives have said they plan to pay a fee-in-lieu to the Portland Housing Bureau.

The fee must be paid at the time permits are issued. Based on information provided by the applicant, the fee will be approximately $7 million to $8 million, Housing Bureau spokeswoman Martha Calhoon said.

The post Block 216 developer secures loan, but lacks permits appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The days are numbered for Portland’s largest food-cart pod.

Food cart owners on Block 216, in downtown, were given letters Thursday to vacate the property by June 30. Parking lot customers on the block received similar letters.

“Some dude just walked by and said, ‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news,’ and handed me the letter,” said Matt Breslow, owner of the Grilled Cheese Grill food carts.

The block is the site of a planned 35-story tower that would include a hotel, office space, condominiums and retail suites. The proposal from developer Walt Bowen’s BPM Real Estate Group �ɲ�����approved by the Portland Design Commission in December. A shoring and excavation permit is under review by the Bureau of Development Services, records show.

The eviction letter spells an end for the food cart pod, which became an international attraction. At its height, more than 50 food carts shared the block, which is bounded by Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues and Washington and Alder streets.

Some food cart operators have no plans for where to move their carts, and face sudden disruption of their business. Others have managed to find open spots at cart pods around Portland. Since the Block 216 proposal came to light last year, some new pods – including Hawthorne Asylum in Southeast Portland – have opened. Pod owners as far away as Beaverton have recruited the block’s food cart operators.

Breslow said he’s moving his downtown cart to a pod a few blocks away at Southwest Third Avenue and Washington Street.

Sam Mouzon, who has managed the Dinner Bell Barbecue cart since March 2017, and worked at other carts before that, said other locations won’t measure up.

“There’s a ton of spots to go, but none anywhere near as good as this,” he said. “There’s strength in numbers. That’s what makes this block magical.”

The end of Block 216’s food cart era comes just as the busy summer season gathers momentum.

“It’s just really sad for us they’re doing this in July, which is the peak,” Mouzon said. “We put up with the cold months just to be here in the summer.”

A spokesman for Bowen did not immediately respond to questions.

The city is considering a concept for a Culinary Corridor that would run along Southwest Ninth Avenue at O’Bryant Park, and past the new tower toward Director Park. Planning for that concept, however, has lagged behind Bowen’s tower proposal.

The eviction is particularly tough for many cart owners who are first-generation immigrants and speak limited English.

Boping Wong, who owns the Asian Fusion Bar cart, said she had no plans.

“I don’t know yet,” she said of the cart’s future.

The collection of carts attracted attention from travel TV shows and social-media users. On Thursday, Lloyd Knight, a Delta Air Lines pilot from Memphis, Tennessee, said he would miss visiting the food carts during his layovers in Portland.

“It’s unique,” he said.

The post Updated: food carts given deadline to vacate block appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Portland planners searching for downtown space to host food carts are discovering it’s not easy to replace a full block.

City officials are considering more than one location, and various configurations, for the proposed Culinary Corridor. Each would involve trade-offs.

Construction of the 35-story Block 216 tower, between Southwest Washington and Alder streets and Ninth and 10th avenues, is expected to begin as soon as this summer. More than 40 food carts remaining on the block will have to move elsewhere. The 460-foot-tall building will include a luxury hotel and residential and office space, and a food hall could line the ground floor along Southwest Ninth Avenue.

GBD Architects‘ tower design for developer Walt Bowen’s BPM Real Estate received the Design Commission‘s approval in December.

To fill in the gap, food cart advocates have proposed creating a Culinary Corridor. Mayor Ted Wheeler has expressed support for the idea, and city staffers have been wrestling with where and how to move the food carts.

“At this point we’re exploring the logistics and challenges of locating food carts in the right of way,” said Dylan Rivera, spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

On Thursday, representatives of PBOT and the city’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and Bureau of Development Services briefed the Design Commission on early concepts for the Culinary Corridor. City staffers are expected to send to Wheeler this spring a memorandum with options.

The first location being considered is Southwest Ninth Avenue adjacent to O’Bryant Square, between Washington and Harvey Milk streets. The corridor could extend as far south as the SmartPark garage between Morrison and Yamhill streets. O’Bryant Square has been closed for nearly a year due to structural issues.

Another possibility is on Park Avenue between Oak and Burnside streets. Carts could be on the street in that area with minimal traffic disruption, and street closures on some blocks could be an option, city staffers said. Some blocks could lose on-street parking.

The city also has long-term plans for additional traffic signals on Burnside Street, including at Park Avenue, to ease pedestrian access across the thoroughfare.

Another option would place food carts on Ankeny Street north of the U.S. Bancorp Tower’s parking garage.

Those areas are likely to have less foot traffic than Block 216, raising concerns about the Culinary Corridor’s economic viability.

“I’m a little concerned you’re looking at peripheral locations,” Commissioner Don Vallaster said. “One of the reasons Block 216 works so well is it’s right in the heart of downtown. You move down Burnside, there’s not a whole lot going on around there.”

Commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston said the carts need to be “set up for success” with good urban design.

Commissioner Sam Rodriguez expressed concern that lines of food carts could make a tunnel that would feel unsafe.

“I just think there are some safety issues,” he said.

City officials have not approached neighboring property owners yet as the potential locations remain only conceptual options.

Rodriguez said some locations, such as a restaurant storefront, may not work for food carts.

“If I’m a property owner, and you put a bunch of food carts in front of my building, I’m not sure I’m going to want that,” he said.

It’s unclear how the Culinary Corridor would be overseen. The city could issue permits for the carts, or it could hire an operator via a request for proposals. The city is unlikely to act as a food-cart pod manager.

City officials are also considering carts’ infrastructure needs.

“For a pilot to be successful, hard connections to sewer and water would be more pleasing and better for public health,” PBOT staffer Matt Berkow said.

The post City studying possibilities for Culinary Corridor appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Time is growing short for downtown Portland’s largest food-cart pod as construction of a 35-story tower nears. A diverse group of cart entrepreneurs now has few options.

Developer Walter Bowen’s BPM Real Estate Group aims to break ground on the Block 216 project in June or July 2019, said Brian Owendoff, a real estate broker who is representing Bowen. The carts would be evicted before then, although the exact timetable is unclear.

Bowen, through spokesman Pat Walsh, declined to answer questions. More information would be available in the “first quarter” of 2019, Walsh stated.

Some food-cart owners said they were actively looking to move, or establish brick-and-mortar restaurants. But many others weren’t sure what they’ll do when they are forced to vacate the block bounded by Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues, and Washington and Alder streets.

“We really don’t know where to go,” said Lin Chen, owner and operator of Shanghai’s Best Street Food, a cart that sells Chinese steam buns. “I hope somebody can help us. I still want to do the food cart, but I don’t know where.”

Carts have been on the West End block since Altengartz, a bratwurst cart, opened in 2000. At the pod’s peak, more than 50 food carts lined the block’s edges.

Food-cart boosters have suggested several ways forward. A small group of civic activists recently proposed to the City Council a concept they call the Culinary Corridor for food carts to line Southwest Ninth Avenue from O’Bryant Square to Director Park.

Randy Gragg, part of the informal group, last week met with city officials from various bureaus and the mayor’s office.

“It’s pretty clear that they want it to happen,” he said. “After our presentation at council, it seems like everyone’s engaged. I’ve had a lot of conversations at City Hall, and there seems to be enthusiasm.”

Gragg is pushing for a phased approach that would begin with minimal infrastructure.

“What I’m advocating for is let’s get something going,” he said. “Let’s try something out, and we can go back and retrofit it with infrastructure if it’s working out as a retail concept.”

Food carts can get by on little more than electricity, but new pods are providing more infrastructure. Beaverton’s BG Food Cartel was built from the ground up as a food-cart pod, so it has dedicated electricity – meaning no extension cords run around the block – and is connected to sewer, so wastewater removal is unnecessary.

Portland isn’t going to let the carts go without a fight. Mayor Ted Wheeler has embraced the Culinary Corridor concept, and the city’s planning and transportation bureaus are trying to figure out how to make it work.

“Nationally, we are known for our food carts,” said Kyle Chisek, director of bureau relations and policy for the mayor’s office. “We did something really interesting here in Portland, and we want to take this to the next level. This Culinary Corridor concept – we want to move forward on it.”

The city is investigating permanently placing food carts along Ninth Avenue, Chisek said. That would involve utility hook-ups, he said.

“For a permanent installation, yeah, we would be pulling utilities,” he said.

City bureaus are also looking at where to put carts temporarily until infrastructure can be built. Staffers are focusing on the Ninth Avenue corridor as a temporary option as well, Chisek said.

Timing is in question. Fully developing something like the proposed Culinary Corridor could take years – far too long for the Block 216 cart owners to transition without disruption.

Some cart owners were philosophical, if not resigned. Food carts, after all, are meant to be mobile and occupy space in the urban grid wherever the customers are. And no one expected a full block in the heart of downtown Portland to remain undeveloped forever.

“I think everybody’s just going to scatter to the winds and see where they end up,” said Matt Breslow, who opened a Grilled Cheese Grill cart, his third at the time, on the downtown block in 2012. “It’s kind of sad. But what are you going to do? It’s America.”

Breslow said he is scouting locations for a possible brick and mortar version of Grilled Cheese Grill. He also has a cart on Northeast Alberta Street to fall back on.

As Portland loses food carts, the suburbs are gaining. BG Food Cartel in Beaverton opened Feb. 1 and now has 29 carts, with two vacancies.

“The suburbs want them,” said Dana Bigi, a co-owner with two brothers of the Beaverton pod. “As downtown is pushing these people out, the suburbs are willing to open up their lots.”

James King, owner of The Frying Scotsman fish and chips carts, saw the signs and moved recently from the downtown block to Beaverton.

“I knew it was coming to an end,” he said.

King said he considered opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant, but couldn’t find an affordable location. He applied to BG Food Cartel and was accepted.

“I’m actually busier in Beaverton than I was downtown,” he said.

Portland food carts were featured on television travel shows and articles ranking the best ones. Travel Portland, the city’s tourism organization, has used the Block 216 pod’s food carts in its marketing materials.

The downtown pod hosts a free-wheeling collection of international food of a breadth that is nearly impossible to find elsewhere. The many gyro and Middle Eastern carts are joined by others selling Mexican, Italian, German, Greek, Thai, Chinese, Japanese and American.

Kyohei Yasukawa opened a Japanese fried chicken cart, Donya, on Block 216 after working as a sushi chef at several Portland restaurants. The city will be losing a popular tourist attraction, he said.

“I just think this city is going to be really boring,” Yasukawa said. “There’s no Disneyland. There’s no aquarium.”

Food carts elsewhere in Portland continue to be successful, including some at a downtown pod along Southwest Fifth Avenue between Oak and Harvey Milk streets. In other neighborhoods, pods such as Cartopia on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, and the Prost! Marketplace on North Mississippi Avenue appear to be thriving. A new pod called Hawthorne Asylum is under construction at Southeast 11th Avenue and Madison Street.

Some cart owners said the Block 216 pod peaked a couple of years ago. Nearby construction and the closure in March of O’Bryant Square, where customers would often take their lunches, have taken a toll.

Rents on Block 216 have risen as well, cart owners said. King said his rent at the downtown pod jumped from $850 to $1,100 beginning Oct. 1. Cart owners also pay for the removal of restaurant wastewater, known as “gray water,” at a cost of about $400 a month.

The lot is one of several managed locally by City Center Parking, part of Impark Co., a management company based in Vancouver, British Columbia. City Center Parking referred questions to Impark, which did not respond to written questions.

Plans for the tower on Block 216 also call for a food hall with stalls fronting Ninth Avenue, which will become a Dutch-style woonerf. It’s not clear how many stalls the food hall will have or whether rents will be comparable to those paid by food carts. The building is projected to open in October 2022, Owendoff said.

“It’s just whatever we can do to help them find new places and maybe have some of them come back into the food hall in 2022,” Owendoff said after the design was approved at a Dec. 13 meeting.

In the meantime, cart owners, the nomads of the restaurant world, will do what they’ve always done: move where they can.

Food carts coming to Buckman neighborhood

A new food-cart pod is projected to open in Southeast Portland in February, providing an outlet for some of the carts displaced by the impending closure of Block 216.

Owner Steve Johnson and his son Brock plan to open Hawthorne Asylum along the Buckman neighborhood’s southern edge on Feb. 1. The pod on the property bounded by Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, Madison Street, and 10th and 11th avenues was once home to the Oregon Hospital for the Insane, which was co-founded by J.C. Hawthorne.

The pod, which is currently under construction, will have room for 23 carts.

It hasn’t taken long to attract interest, Steve Johnson said.

“I’m almost completely leased out in about three weeks,” he said.

Johnson plans to add a three-story building on the block’s southwest corner, with two floors of creative offices over retail space.

The pod will have a Gothic feel, with a massive steel gate holding lit torches, Johnson said.

Johnson and his son are building the pod themselves. The carts will be provided individual gas and electrical meters, and they will be connected to sewer and water utilities.

Steve Johnson said he does not plan future development on the food-cart area, ensuring carts will be able to stick around.

“These people aren’t going to be displaced in three or four or five years,” he said. – Chuck Slothower

The post Uncertainty now on the menu appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland Design Commission voted Thursday to approve plans for a 35-story tower that will transform Portland’s skyline, disband the city’s largest collection of food carts and set a precedent for the much-discussed and yet-to-be-built Green Loop.

Commissioners approved the Block 216 project Thursday with conditions despite objections expressed by city transportation and environmental services bureaus, whose representatives said they hadn’t had adequate time to consider issues ranging from overhanging street lights to a century-old water pipe.

The 844,117-square-foot project was valued at $245 million by the Bureau of Development Services. The building, designed by GBD Architects, will provide the West End a luxury hotel, office space, condominiums, retail space and dining space.

In an unusual move, commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the tower and podium design despite a staff report that recommended denial until various technical issues related to the tower’s frontage on Southwest Ninth Avenue could be resolved. (Commissioners Don Vallaster and Andrew Clarke were absent).

“We’re not there yet, and we’re not supportive of the conditions that have been proposed,” PBOT senior planner Fabio de Freitas said before the commission voted.

The project was on its way toward staff approval, de Freitas said.

“We believe we’re going to be able to get to yes,” he said. “We just haven’t had the information, nor the time, yet.”

The commission’s approval now shifts responsibility for high-stakes changes on Southwest Ninth Avenue to city bureau staffers. They could deny a permit or impose conditions, in which case the applicant could appeal to the Design Commission.

The project will be the first to front the Green Loop – a concept for a bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly street throughout central Portland.

“This is a nonstandard street by every level of interpretation,” de Freitas said. “We’ve been working diligently with the developer to work through toward concept approval. We just haven’t gotten there yet.”

Much about the Green Loop remains to be decided even as developments such as Block 216 go ahead.

“We honestly found some folks who weren’t familiar with the Green Loop concept within those service bureaus,” GBD Director Phil Beyl said.

The project, located on a full block bounded by Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues and Washington and Alder streets, comes from local developer Walter Bowen’s BPM Real Estate Group. The block is owned by the Goodman family’s Downtown Development Group. The deal is structured as a long-term land lease; the Goodmans will continue to own the block.

“This is frankly the largest private-sector project to break ground since Big Pink (U.S. Bancorp Tower) in 1980, so this is a step in the right direction,” said Brian Owendoff, a local real-estate broker who is representing Bowen.

The project will displace Portland’s largest food-cart pod. The block hosted more than 50 food carts earlier this year. The number has dwindled as some carts have moved.

The project team hopes to break ground in June or July 2019, Owendoff said. The food carts would be evicted before then. The tower is projected to be open and operational in October 2022, Owendoff said.

“The approval’s great, but the real work now begins,” he said. “We’re looking forward to moving dirt and creating a 100-year building that will frankly increase real estate taxes, hotel taxes and income taxes to the city of almost $10 million a year.”

The project team also includes HKS Architects and Howard S. Wright, a division of Balfour Beatty.

Thursday’s meeting saw a flurry of last-minute changes to the design. A story was eliminated from the podium that fronts Southwest Ninth Avenue. One floor of the 35-story tower was converted from office to hotel, increasing the number of rooms from 232 to 249. Design changes were made to a floor containing a swimming pool that will be visible at the corner of Southwest Ninth Avenue and Washington Street, pulling the floor back into the structure.

The tower and podium were also redesigned so the tower “nests into the podium,” said Kyle Andersen, a GBD Architects principal.

Block 216 was the last undeveloped full block in downtown Portland. Its development marks the largest step yet in the steady elimination of surface parking lots in inner Portland in favor of vertical development.

The Block 216 project will likely be the largest Portland building of its era. A lack of available land, development headwinds and zoning restrictions make anything larger unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Even as commissioners voted to grant design approval, some expressed misgivings.

“It seems like we could be setting a precedent here to short-circuit bureaus,” Commissioner Jessica Molinar said.

It will be the project team’s task to meet conditions set by city staff, Commissioner Sam Rodriguez said.

“The risk is being borne here by the applicant,” he said. “If they can’t get there, they can’t get there. The whole thing goes away. I’m happy to put that burden on them if they’re happy to take it.”

Further delay of the project could threaten its viability, Rodriguez added.

“If we don’t show some flexibility to move with big, complex projects like this, we’re not going to see them,” he said.

It was critical to get approval Thursday, Owendoff said after the meeting.

“There’s an old saying in real estate,” he said. “Time kills deals.”

The post Updated: Block 216 tower design approved appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.