A promising development project in the heart of Northwest Portland has hit a snag, leaving its future uncertain.

The NW 23rd and Marshall Apartments, a mixed-use building conceived by Vancouver-based developer C.E. John Co., was designed to be five-story, mixed-use building with 74 apartment units over 10,000 square feet of retail space and underground parking with 44 vehicle spots.

However, at present, the project has been delayed indefinitely and placed on the market, said Mark Osbourne, vice president of leasing at C.E. John Co.

Osbourne added that there was less interest in the retail space than initially expected, and coupled with the ongoing increase in construction costs, led to the project being put on hold.

C.E. John Co. acquired the half-block property, at 2315 N.W. Marshall St., along Northwest 23rd Avenue, directly opposite the Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center, for $6.575 million in January 2019, public documents show.

The project gained approval from the Portland Design Commission in May 2021. During the approval hearing, GBD Architects, the design firm, requested approval for two different exterior materials: metal cladding or stucco, contingent on cost. The request raised concerns among commissioners at that time, underscoring the persistent challenges that project teams face due to unpredictable supply costs.

The demolition of the former one-story building on the site was completed over a year ago. Currently, the vacant area is fenced off amidst the commercial activity along 23rd Avenue.

Presently, a building permit for excavation, shoring and foundation work has been approved by the Bureau of Development Services. Additionally, a $19 million building permit for the structure is under review.

Osbourne said that C.E. John Co. is exploring various options for the property, and there is a possibility of revisiting development of the site within a year.

The post Promising NW Portland development hits snag appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A 20-story hotel proposed for downtown Portland was criticized for being “too dark” at a recent Portland Design Commission hearing, drawing comparisons to the Yard, a 21-story building close to completion at the east end of the Burnside Bridge.

It’s not the biggest controversy the project has faced. Designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects, the new hotel drew criticism from preservationists late last year because the project will require demolition of the three-story, 110-year-old Albion Hotel that houses the Lotus Cardroom and Café.

Ankrom Moisan principal Murray Jenkins said at the time that his firm, serving as project architect, tried its best to save the Hotel Albion. However, the challenges were too great because the building had not been maintained. Jenkins said 3-D scans showed both internal and external unreinforced masonry walls in the old building were load-bearing and made reconstruction unfeasible.

The pending demolition was not mentioned at the June 16 design hearing. Instead, discussion referenced the fact that the Yard came under fire for not adhering to the design the commission approved, appearing much darker because of reduced glazing on its upper floors.

As a result, commissioners were hesitant to approve the new hotel until they had further evidence that it would not be a gloomy addition to Portland’s skyline.

Ankrom Moisan Architects’ Michael Great said the design team decided to go from light gray to burgundy for the color of the building’s brick – a change that drew Commission Chairman David Wark’s objection.

“The biggest challenge I see is color,” he said. “What made you go to the dark side?”

Great said that after walking the neighborhood where the hotel will be located, he observed there were many light-colored buildings, leading him to believe a darker building would be complementary and relate well to the historic Auditorium Building next to the site.

“We will make sure we get the glass right and then we can avoid the dark monolith buildings people are talking about,” Great said.

But Commissioner Tad Savinar said the building was still “too dark,” and Wark suggested it might be more interesting to have a grouping of light-colored buildings.

“We have lessons learned from the bridgehead project,” he said. “We’re much more reticent to approve dark buildings. The city doesn’t need another 20-story dark building.”

Commissioner Jeff Simpson noted that reflective glass might not add a lot.

“I’m not anti-dark buildings and you might have reflectivity, but we have a lot of gray days,” he said.

Commissioner Julie Livingston said she liked the color of the previous design and suggested the design team come back with a light gray color for the brick, even if the color of bronze accents had to be adjusted.

City planner Hillary Adam also asked Great to come back with more detailed renderings that accurately reflect the color.

“We want it to be right rather than just making it through the day,” she said.

In addition to new renderings and a lighter color, Savinar asked Great to include surrounding buildings in renderings for the project’s next hearing.

The current design calls for a 20-story, 225-room hotel attached to a three-story building with restaurants and retail space. The three-story building will have a green roof that slopes at an angle to become a green wall extending two floors down to an all-glass primary entrance on Southwest Salmon Street. A secondary entrance on Southwest Second Avenue will lead to a rooftop bar with terraces and a shallow pool.

Wark asked about maintenance of the green wall, which will extend down into the lobby area.

Kurt Lango of Lango Hansen Landscape Architects said the green wall will use a hydroponic felt system that comes in large sheets. He said the green roof will be planted with sedums and other low growing plants and the green wall will be mostly ferns.

Commissioners also discussed the composition of the building. Savinar said the design is “just not there,” but Commissioner Jessica Molinar disagreed.

“The composition, for me, meets the guidelines,” she said.

Livingston and Simpson also indicated that they would approve the design, and the project appears to be on track to pass when it comes back for review on July 7.

“It’s a grand improvement from the previous version,” Simpson said.

Two apartment projects approved

Also on Thursday, the Design Commission took only about 20 minutes to approve the design of a 14-story apartment building at 1133 S.W. Market St. designed by SERA Architects and developed by M.A. Mortensen Development.

The 150-foot building will sit on a quarter-block and provide 146 residential units, 21 parking spaces with mechanical stacking, ground-floor office space and a fitness center that can be converted to retail. A rooftop amenity deck will include an eco-roof, fitness and common rooms, two stair enclosures, an elevator overrun and screened enclosure for mechanical units.

Commissioners also approved, with minor conditions, the design for a new four-story mixed-use building on a partial-block site fronting Northwest 23rd Avenue and Savier Street. Four small wood-framed buildings on the site will be demolished.

The project, designed by GBD Architects and developed by C.E. John Co., will have a second-floor roof deck for residents and provide 51 residential units over ground-floor retail with interior mechanical vehicle parking.

During the citizen comment period, Greg Tyson of the Northwest District Association complained about the “lack of an attempt” to save an old oak tree on the property that had been cut back for power lines over the years.

After considerable discussion, Simpson, a landscape architect, said since the city arborist rated the tree as only “fair” and the tree had damaged the sidewalk that it should come down.

“The problem is that we have a project with a 100-year life with a tree that could come down in 15 years,” he said.

The post Design Commission: planned hotel ‘too dark’ appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

In less than two years since Cairn Pacific was formed by Tom DiChiara and his longtime business partner Rob Hinnen, the firm has managed to achieve the kind of success it takes most development companies decades to reach.

The duo’s company recently wrapped up two high-profile projects – the LL Hawkins mixed-use multifamily building and a renovation of a 1950s warehouse core and shell for Slabtown Marketplace – on portions of the 25-acre Con-way site in Northwest Portland.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” DiChiara said. “As with any startup, we’ve had our challenges, but we were fortunate to start with LL Hawkins and Slabtown cued up.”

DiChiara is an architect by trade, so he handles project aspects – conceptualization, basic underwriting, and oversight of architecture and construction – that place him squarely in a position as the face of Cairn Pacific. But he’s quick to point out that Hinnen’s background as an attorney and his handling of the financial details of projects along with principal Scott Eaton’s business development efforts are critical to Cairn Pacific’s success.

“(Our) different skill sets all work pretty well together,” DiChiara said.

DiChiara and Hinnen began working together about 13 years ago, handling residential projects for Trammell Crow Residential. They both eventually joined C.E. John, and helped the company develop a plan for the Con-way site. Plans for three projects on the site were under way, DiChiara said, when C.E. John decided to step away from larger-mixed use developments.  DiChiara and Hinnen, however, weren’t ready to walk away from the projects.

“We decided it was time to branch out and build our own destiny,” DiChiara said. “We had a lot of passion and blood, sweat and tears to make (the projects) happen.”

While he and Hinnen are well acquainted the ins-and-outs of development, they still learned some new lessons with the LL Hawkins and Slabtown Market projects.

“It’s different,” DiChiara said. “When it’s your own company and your own money, you look at things differently.”

Cairn Pacific’s forward momentum doesn’t show any signs of slowing soon. From an office with just Hinnen and DiChaira, the company has grown to its current staff of six people. The company also is moving forward with its next project at the Con-Way site.

“The next deals, they feel like they’ve been a long time coming,” DiChiara said. ‘We’re getting ready to start up in about three months.”

The post Newsmakers 2016: Tom DiChiara & Cairn Pacific appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The crew leading redevelopment of the Con-way site in Northwest Portland is branching off into a new company.

C.E. John Co. executives Rob Hinnen and Tom DiChiara will depart C.E. John this summer to form a new company, which will remain the master developer for the 17-acre Con-way site. A third C.E. John executive, Scott Lindgren, reportedly will pursue other opportunities so that he can spend more time with his family.

DiChiara said C.E. John is pulling back from larger, mixed-use developments as it transitions from a second to third generation of family ownership. It has chosen to focus on its existing assets and retail business – including some on Northwest 23rd Avenue, as well as shopping centers like Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton.

“As you can imagine, doing new development — especially on the scale that they’re doing … it’s an involved process,” said Holly Hagerman, spokeswoman for C.E. John. “So they’re trying to get back to their roots and focus more on the management of the assets they have already.”

It’s not the first time Hinnen and DiChiara have jumped ship together. The two previously worked for Trammell Crow Residential.

“We’ve been basically in business for the last decade, and have known each other longer than that,” DiChiara said. “We’re looking forward to branching out on our own and doing the types of projects we want to focus on.”

One is the upcoming Slabtown Marketplace – a retail development containing a New Seasons Market – and another is an adjacent, 113-unit, mixed-use apartment building. Those projects will move forward with a new capital partner, though DiChiara declined to say more at present. He did, however, confirm that he has been in talks with Capstone Partners, which has several large developments under way around Portland.

“We may be partnering with Capstone on some portion of Con-way, but nothing is official yet,” he said.

DiChiara said that any time a new company opens shop, it does so with inherent challenges and risks; however, his company’s role as master developer for the Con-way site should ensure a steady queue of work into the future. In a prepared statement, Craig Boretz, Con-way’s vice president, said he looked forward to working with DiChiara and Hinnen as his company moves forward with the next phases of development.

Additionally, John Residential Construction LLC will remain the general contractor for the Slabtown Marketplace project, and agreements that C.E. John recently negotiated with the Northwest District Association – such as the Clean Diesel and Good Neighbor Agreement – will remain in effect with the new company.

DiChiara and Hinnen don’t intend to grow a giant company. They would rather run a small, boutique shop focusing on everything from office to residential. DiChiara said the transition should be fairly seamless; however, a big challenge at the moment is simply coming up with a new name.

“Coming up with a name is a hard thing to do,” he said. “We have a few finalists, but you really have to search through and look at what’s been used, and tweaked … It won’t be anything with our names because our names don’t have a good flow.”

The post Executives will leave C.E. John, Con-way development plans in hand appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

New Seasons Market is partnering with C.E. John Co. to open a new store on the Con-way Commons site in Northwest Portland.

The Portland grocery chain announced Tuesday that it has officially signed on with C.E. John to convert a 28,000-square-foot former freight warehouse into a full-service market. The store will serve as the anchor for C.E. John’s Slabtown Marketplace development of Block 296, which will include 17,500 additional square feet of retail space and approximately 110 housing units.

Tom DiChiara, vice president of development for C.E. John, said the process to secure a market for the area involved nearly two years of work and discussions with many potential grocers.

“We’re trying to pull the energy of 21st street and 23rd street down into the Con-way District,” DiChiara said. “Having New Seasons there is a key ingredient in that, and as they are in other places, they’ve become a real hub of activity in the neighborhoods.”

New Seasons anticipates the store creating 150 new jobs in the neighborhood.

GBD Architects and Holst Architecture are jointly designing New Seasons’ Con-way store shell. The store’s entry at 2170 N.W. Raleigh St. will include a 40-foot-wide pedestrian plaza with boardwalk decking, outdoor seating and space for merchandising and events.

The store’s interior design, which will play up the original wood trusses and sawtooth skylights, will be handled by LRS Architects

“I think it’s going to be a pretty unique space,” DiChiara said. “We’re going to paint a big mural on the old concrete facade to liven it up and create the festival marketplace feel that we’re trying to capture. That’s going to have a very Portland feel to it.”

C.E. John has a design review meeting for its larger development project scheduled for Feb. 21. DiChiara said he hopes New Seasons construction will begin by this fall, so that a soft opening can occur in fall 2014.

“The goal is to get the grocery store open before Thanksgiving in 2014,” he said.

The post New Seasons to open store at Con-way development appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

After meeting with the Portland Design Commission twice, and are ready to move forward with a 92-unit, six-story apartment project – vinyl windows and all – at 23rd Avenue and Lovejoy Street in Northwest Portland.

Critics of vinyl windows say they are inferior quality and less visually appealing, and the design commission has often rejected attempts to incorporate them into developments.

But vinyl windows are less expensive than fiberglass or aluminum alternatives, so they are an attractive option for new projects, according to Paul Jeffreys, a senior project designer and an associate principal at SERA.

“The apartment market right now is pretty good, but it’s still pretty tight,” he said. “We’re finding that the price point on vinyl windows makes these projects a little more possible.”

However, approval for such windows can be difficult to obtain from the design commission, which reviews designs of new buildings and major renovations in the city.

“In the past, vinyl windows were proposed (to the commission) and they weren’t high enough quality,” city planner Chris Caruso said.

Historic preservation advocate Val Ballestrem, education manager for the and the , explained some of the concerns about vinyl windows. They may contain toxic materials, can be troublesome to repair, and are available in a limited number of colors – including an “unnatural” bright white, “which is one reason why they’re so obvious,” he said.

Ballestrem added that vinyl windows stick out when they replace wood and metal windows in a historic building, or when they are part of a new building in a historic district.

“For people to understand (the difference) they actually have to see it, but once you see it you can always spot it in an instant,” he said. “It messes up the character of a building.”

Caruso said that when vinyl windows are proposed, the design commission typically recommends that designers consider using fiberglass frames “because you can get a thinner profile than with vinyl windows.”

But for the apartment project at 23rd and Lovejoy, the team is using , which have a lifetime guarantee – a “very good” sign of quality, Jeffreys said. The windows are manufactured as “commercial” grade rather than lower “residential” grade. They also have gray frames instead of white, and will be set back in the building so their profile won’t be as visible from the street, Jeffreys said.

The project team last month brought in prototype windows to a design commission meeting to demonstrate the product’s quality.

“Some people have connotations with vinyl windows because of residential construction,” said Tom Dichera, vice president of development at C.E. John Co. “These aren’t those. They are commercial grade, high quality and do very well from an energy point of view.”

The design commission approved the project last month after two hearings just two weeks apart – a “good” speed, Jeffreys said.

“With improvements in vinyl window technology, in the commercial quality and color selection, the commission has been more inclined to approve them if they work with the building,” Caruso said.

Jeffreys said it’s not any easier nowadays to gain approval for vinyl windows, but he added that he believes the commission OK’d the ones proposed for the building at 23rd and Lovejoy because they are “high performance.”

Another project by C.E. John, an apartment building at Northwest 23rd Avenue and Raleigh Street designed by GBD Architects, will feature the same kind of vinyl windows and also was approved by the design commission last month. The building will offer smaller apartment units and include a mechanized parking structure.

Contractor will start work on both projects early next year, Dichera said. The Lovejoy project should wrap up in 14 months, and the Raleigh project will finish in 10 to 11 months, he said.

The post Northwest Portland apartments approved despite plan for vinyl windows appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

C.E. John Co., a development firm in Vancouver, Wash., is poised to continue investing in the Northwest 23rd Avenue area in Portland. It has three projects in the works in the trendy neighborhood and it owns another lot there that it hopes to redevelop soon.

These projects include: a remodel of the Esquire Theater Building at Kearney Street; a new, 94-unit apartment building over ground-floor retail at Lovejoy Street; and a new, 25-unit, mixed-use project at Raleigh Street. The fourth project would be redevelopment of the Besaw’s building on Savier Street.

The Daily Journal of Commerce recently spoke with Tom DiChiara, vice president of development for C.E. John Co. and former managing director at Trammell Crow Co., about the projects and other topics.

91��Ƶ: You were with Mill Creek Residential – formerly Trammell Crow Residential – earlier this year. How did you wind up at C.E. John Co.?

Tom DiChiara: It was a tough decision for me, but I think my decision to come here was about getting to work on some different project types. It’s not just residential. We do commercial and retail. (It’s) an opportunity to work on some smaller scale projects, some infill-type locations. The TCR/Mill Creek merchant-build model is generally bigger, institutional-scale projects. I think I saw fewer opportunities of those moving forward than probably the last decade with the market changes. The opportunities now are on the more neighborhood-scale projects where people want to live and work.

Also, it’s a well capitalized, locally owned company with local decision making, so there’s some advantages to that. It’s not an institutional, merchant-build model. There’s pros and cons to that, but we’ve got a good book of business put together and I think over time – C.E. John tends to look at development on a generational timeframe as we build for our own account – we are looking positive. The merchant-build model is different. It’s more about timing. Obviously, a lot of people didn’t time things right. It’s just good to be back working on projects after warming a seat for a few years.

91��Ƶ: What is the attraction to Northwest 23rd Avenue? Why is now the time to move forward?

DiChiara: Northwest Portland has always been a stable, desirable place to live, work and visit. That hasn’t changed. It’s also a part of town that didn’t see a lot of development during the boom cycle. Other than Park 19, there was really no new multifamily. And also, there was a period of a lot of loss of rental housing to condominium conversions. So, I think we have a net loss from where we were a decade ago in Northwest.

And it’s a great place to live. It’s where I lived for a while when I first moved to town. I think the active streets and the walkable neighborhood and the streetcar – all of those factor into it. Plus, the rent levels are strong there too to help with the economics, as are the retail rents. Those all factor into why now. We’re big believers of the area for the long term, as is the family. They’ve made the investments and now we’re ready to make a further round of investments in the properties we have.

91��Ƶ: Are there any other areas you have targeted for projects or property acquisition?

DiChiara: I think we’re always focused on the close-in neighborhoods where ‘there’ is already there. You know, where the retail is always thriving and people want to live (and) where we can infill and build housing where it’s desired. With TCR, I’ve done my pioneering projects where I’m waiting for the market to get there. Sometimes that doesn’t work out well. The established sites, it’s already there, but they have new challenges, like just finding lots. (Northwest) 23rd (Avenue) has all those things going forward, and is still close to downtown.

91��Ƶ: So, is Portland the main area of focus?

DiChiara: It’s mostly Portland-focused right now. We still have some retail in Beaverton with a shopping center out there and an expansion we’re working on. It’s a different challenge out there, trying to make an aging shopping center something that is new and transit-oriented … (and) prepare it for the next cycle of its life. As we grow we might branch out, but right now Portland is keeping us busy.

91��Ƶ: I see that a lot of the people that came out of Trammell Crow are working locally around the industry. How has that experience helped you?

DiChiara: I joined TCR after practicing architecture for a decade. I didn’t have much specific real estate experience. I learned a lot there. It’s always been a great company with a lot of smart people working there. I was able to absorb a lot with the people I worked with both locally, regionally and nationally. Those relationships in the institutional world were very helpful in the types of developments I’m doing now, even if they’re more regionally focused using our own capital.

It’s always been an incubator. They’ll come and learn the business and then they elect to spin off their own companies. I think a lot of that is cyclical with the markets and how they work.

TCR and the Crow family provided the financial bench strength and connections to institutional capital sources, but the overall company was really a collection of individual local and regional partnerships. That entrepreneurial culture is probably the main reason why over the years some partners, some offices and even some divisions have split off to form their own companies. As you know, many of those spin-offs have grown into national companies, such as Holland Residential, Avalon Bay, Wood Partners, etc.

91��Ƶ: You aren’t the only firm pitching, and working on, urban infill-type projects. Was that the lesson learned from the last cycle?

DiChiara: There’s always been cycles, but the enduring neighborhoods are always the enduring neighborhoods. There’s always going to be more stability downtown compared to the suburbs. TCR, from a business point of view, has been a lot less successful in the suburbs compared to the urban markets – at least in the last decade. Those commodity markets and that product type are just all about timing. Then you see the demographic changes (and) people wanting to live closer to work and all the traffic and transit issues. There’s a national push for transit-oriented, mixed-use urban infill-type projects. Portland has been ahead of the curve on those projects.

Lessons learned … that’s difficult. A year and a half or two years ago I don’t think anyone expected the multifamily market to recover as quickly as it did, both from a value and fundamentals standpoint. Then there’s a little froth in markets like Seattle, and everyone is doing all the same things they were doing right before the recession. So I’m not sure they did learn a lesson.

That stuff comes from a merchant-build mind-set. Investing in real estate for the long term is the way you need to look at it. And it has to work on the long term. You can’t rely on events. That’s the goal. It’s not always easy to make the numbers work, but it’s what we strive for.

The post Tom DiChiara, vice president of development for C.E. John Co. appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Developer C.E. John Co. is planning a 94-unit mixed-use apartment building at . The long-vacant property has been owned by the family since 2004, and “the time is right” to start developing it, said Tom Dichera, vice president of development with the company.

“We’re working on a number of mixed-use projects in an effort to diversify our portfolio of properties,” Dichera said.

C.E. John has historically been a developer of large retail properties and shopping centers, such as . Dichera said the company plans to build into a strong demand for rental housing with new investment in neighborhood locations. The buildings will still have retail, but also include multifamily housing.

Dichera said the Lovejoy property is one of a “handful” of multifamily projects the firm is working on. He could not discuss others publicly, but said the Lovejoy property will be among the largest, at six stories and 110,000 square feet. On-site parking for 67 vehicles is also planned.

C.E. John Co. and SERA Architects have a on the project planned for next week, on May 31.

The post 94-unit apartment building planned on Northwest Lovejoy appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.