Fed up with trash, excrement and complaints from office tenants, Central Eastside businesses are uniting to clean up the district.

The Central Eastside Industrial Council (CEIC) is forming an enhanced services district, said Brad Malsin, the council’s president. The district, similar to Clean & Safe (downtown Portland) and Go Lloyd, will pay for workers to remove litter, refer homeless individuals to social services and provide a watchful eye on the area.

The effort comes amid a surge of office development in the Central Eastside. As businesses such as Autodesk, Simple and Viewpoint Construction Services have opened large offices in the area, they’ve found an uneasy coexistence with the district’s homeless population.

“It hasn’t been pervasive, but it has been very disturbing that people are being accosted on the street, that their cars are being broken into,” said Brad Malsin, president of the CEIC and principal at Beam Development. “There’s excrement on the sidewalk and on doorsteps. That’s why we’re doing this enhanced services district. That’s why we’re going to try to take control.”

The district will be funded by assessments on property owners and by a share of revenue from new parking meters. Officials expect to launch the district in 2018.

Workers will patrol the district to clean up trash and watch for misbehavior, Malsin said. The district will provide portable toilets to improve sanitation, and there are ongoing discussions with Central City Concern to connect homeless individuals to supportive services.

“We obviously can’t eliminate homelessness overnight as much as we would love to – and we would love to not have people sleeping outside,” Malsin said. “We realize it’s a process.”

Portland’s homeless population has grown while the Central Eastside has transformed into a hip enclave for tech businesses and the services that follow. Where there were once warehouses and old-school industrial manufacturers, office workers can now get bison and Wagyu beef burgers at Stacked Sandwiches, and single-origin coffees at Water Avenue.

The juxtaposition has made for some strange encounters. One Central Eastside business, OMFG Co., battled a repeat offender who relieved himself on the windowsills. Eventually, the man was caught in the act and arrested, said Ashley Hildreth, studio manager at the branding consulting firm.

Hildreth said the office at the foot of the Burnside Bridge has also been the target of graffiti and detrimental window etching. At times, walking on the sidewalk can be impossible because of tents and tarps erected by homeless people camped there, Hildreth said.

“It’s just kind of a sketchy area,” she said. “The fact that it’s getting developed, though, in the next five years, this whole area will probably feel a whole lot different.”

The Central Eastside’s struggles with homelessness are not unique in Portland. The city and surrounding suburbs are experimenting with various approaches to reducing homelessness, from erecting “tiny houses” to expanding the budget for supportive services.

The sense of alarm seems to be increasing. Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle submitted an op-ed piece that The Oregonian published Nov. 10. He stated he was considering moving the apparel company’s downtown office after threatening incidents, thefts and problems with garbage and human waste. He suggested the city should hire more police officers.

Malsin said he moved forward with the enhanced services district after a meeting with Mayor Ted Wheeler made it clear the city does not have the resources to clean up the Central Eastside on its own. Malsin compared Portland to Seattle, which has a far larger police force, and New York City, which provides extensive emergency shelter.

In New York, Malsin said, “it costs them close to $1 billion a year, but nobody sleeps on the street. You get picked up, they take you to an apartment and you’re housed. I think that’s what we need. If we had the resources, we could do that.”

Malsin serves on the board of A Home for Everyone, and said he has tried to be part of the solution. Each night, 100 to 120 homeless people take shelter in Malsin’s ex-Shleifer Furniture building. Beam Development has plans to tranform the building into a boutique hotel, but for now, it functions as a shelter.

Malsin believes more resources are needed.

“The question is how much are we willing to sacrifice and pay to make sure people aren’t sleeping on the street?” he said.

Companies continue to come to the Central Eastside despite the homelessness problem. Autodesk, a design software company, revealed in May that it had agreed to lease 108,750 square feet in the renovated Towne Storage building. Autodesk will move more than 200 employees to the Burnside bridgehead location.

Strong job growth has helped fuel demand for creative-office space throughout central Portland. In the Central Eastside, developers have responded, with 369,706 square feet of office space under construction during the third quarter, according to Jones Lange LaSalle. Average asking rents rose to $32.02.

“They’re convinced this is where they need to be,” Malsin said. “They want to be amongst the creative firms, the grit and the energy in the district.”

The CEIC has advocated for zoning that encourages industrial office space and sets strict limits on housing and retail operations in the area. The new zoning is included in the city’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan.

Malsin, who was involved in the early stages of the Central Eastside’s transformation, said more changes are forthcoming.

“In this iteration of the Central Eastside, I think it’s still at the very beginning,” he said. “It’s at that nascent moment.”

Many former warehouses and factories have been purchased by developers and converted to creative-office space. But the area has the potential for much greater density, Malsin said.

“The density in the district is really on the minimal side,” he said. “With the new 2035 plan and the Southeast Quadrant plan, we have the opportunity to create a lot more of this kind of workspace. It’s going to take years to unfold, but I think the table’s been set.”

Another new effort coming to the district is the Innovation Quadrant, which seeks to bring educational institutions together with businesses.

Backers are trying to join Oregon Health & Science University, Portland State University, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and Portland Community College with companies such as Intel and Nike to advocate for workforce development.

The Innovation Quadrant will have a small office in the Towne Storage building, Malsin said.

“What we’re trying to do is connect the institutions to the businesses to the creative people in the district,” Malsin said. “There’s a strong desire to collaborate, and I think the Innovation Quadrant is about collaboration.”

The post Central Eastside businesses taking charge appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A team of Portland State University students has unveiled its ideas for developing more than 4 acres of land near the east bank of the Willamette River.

Prosper Portland is preparing to issue a request for qualifications from developers to build on the property. The agency in November agreed to purchase 2.19 acres along Southeast Water Avenue, and lease an additional 2.18 acres, from the Oregon Department of Transportation.

The ODOT blocks, as the properties are known, are in one of the hottest areas for development in all of Portland.

Developers have rushed into the neighborhood with projects such as Killian Pacific‘s Goat Blocks, Clay Creative and Clay Pavilion, Capstone Partners‘ Custom Blocks and Beam Development‘s 811 Stark building.

For office projects, the Central Eastside Industrial District offers an evolving neighborhood with some of the city’s hottest restaurants, bars and coffee shops, proximity to downtown and plentiful transportation options.

Zoning in the area is restricted to encourage office and light-industrial uses. As part of Portland’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan, zoning limits retail spaces to 5,000 square feet per site and allows a new category: industrial office use.

The zoning seeks to preserve the district for use as an employment center, said Debbie Kitchin, who served as co-chairwoman of the Southeast Quadrant Plan committee and is a board member of the Central Eastside Industrial Council.

“We just don’t have much availability of land for that type of development,” said Kitchin, who was speaking as an individual.

The CEIC pushed for the zoning to preserve an employment center and resist turning it into another close-in neighborhood given over to housing and retail.

“I think we came to a good compromise for the Central Eastside,” Kitchin said. “There are already areas that are zoned for residential and retail,” concentrated around the East Side’s bridgeheads.

The city is also interested in adding to its property tax rolls. Under ODOT ownership, the parcels generated no property taxes for the city.

PSU graduate students were asked to evaluate development possibilities for the three blocks owned by Prosper Portland. They presented their proposals at a NAIOP Oregon meeting held Sept. 21 at the Multnomah Athletic Club.

The three Water Avenue blocks owned by Prosper Portland are individually 34,800 square feet between Taylor and Salmon streets, 34,800 square feet between Salmon and Main streets and 25,600 between Main and Madison streets.

The PSU students were asked to weigh in on the ODOT blocks as an academic exercise. Ultimately, a developer will come up with a separate proposal for the site.

The students unveiled a concept for what they called the Portland Innovation Center, consisting of two massive buildings joined by a sky-bridge. The two buildings would consist of the five-story Idea Factory and nine-story Perch. The latter building would have industrial office and “maker” space of floors five through nine. Floors two through four would consist of a parking garage with ramps in a central atrium that would be removable in case demand for parking slackens in the future.

A Dutch-style “Woonerf” – a narrow street that’s friendly to bicyclists and pedestrians – would run beneath the sky-bridge.

The student proposal met with some skepticism amid encouragement from a panel that included developers Kira Cador of Rembold and Brad Malsin of Beam Development.

One of the students, Andrew Crampton, acknowledged that sky-bridges are typically discouraged by city regulators.

“In Portland, establishing a sky-bridge is a herculean task,” Crampton said.

A sky-bridge at the site would maintain existing view corridors and break up an imposing “superblock feel,” Crampton said.

The zoning allows for a 3-to-1 floor area ratio (FAR) and a 1-to-1 bonus. The students said to make the project work, the site would need a FAR of more than 5-to-1. The students said the buildings would be filled with long-term tenants.

But long-term leases can be difficult to fill, said Paige Morgan, an executive vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle.

Malsin added that he had filled Central Eastside leases in part by using creative leasing structures.

“A lot of early-stage companies are not going to sign 10-year leases,” he said.

The panelists’ criticisms were fair, said Jamison Loos, one of the students.

“I’m glad that the panelists agreed that our proposal reflected the Innovation Quadrant and (Central Eastside Industrial Council’s) goals,” he stated in an email message. “Prosper Portland will ultimately decide what gets built, but the right development will align the interests of the city with key stakeholders in the business community.”

The choice of developer will be key to successfully building on the site, according to Loos.

“They’ll need to find the right developer who understands the context and can bring their own creativity to site-specific challenges,” he said.

Prosper Portland paid $2.485 million for the ODOT blocks. The state agency is retaining 94,000 square feet on the western portion of the parcels for future construction staging.

The PSU students also evaluated development options for two downtown parcels near the university. The first is a 0.69-acre property at 424 S.W. Mill St. The existing tenant, St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Parish, is interested in moving into a new building and adding development on the parcel. The existing church dates to 1901 and is made of unreinforced masonry.

“Currently, the church lacks the capital to seismically upgrade the building,” said Dawson Marchant, a PSU student on the downtown team.

To finance a new church, the students proposed to sell part of the property for hotel development.

The other parcel is a 0.92-acre lot bordered by Mill and Market streets and Fourth and Fifth avenues. The property is one of the last surface parking lots left in south downtown.

The students proposed a senior housing development on that parcel, which is owned by Willing Co., a foreign real-estate investment group. (The students cheekily referred to their concept for the twin parcels as the God-Willing Development Plan).

Industry experts on the NAIOP panel questioned several aspects of the students’ development proposal, including their concept to demolish the church, a historic landmark, in favor of a new building. The professionals also questioned whether the senior housing project would work if it’s subject to Portland’s inclusionary housing rules.

“The long-term value is not there,” Cador said. “I know your investor is looking for a low-risk project. I think this is a high-risk project.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been corrected from an earlier version that misattributed a quote from Andrew Crampton to another student.

The post Advancing the ODOT blocks appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A tunnel under the Willamette River is still an option on the table for replacing the aging and vulnerable Burnside Bridge.

The alternative was discussed last week at a coffee-and-pizza stakeholders meeting facilitated by the agency in charge of the 91-year-old span, Multnomah County.

Officials are considering how to shore up the 17-mile “Burnside Corridor” – Burnside Street from U.S. Route 26 to Gresham – as a “lifeline” through the Portland-metro area, with the bridge over the Willamette River an acknowledged weak link.

A tunnel, however, is considered a highly unlikely solution, for reasons including high energy consumption and lack of space for terminals. What’s looking more and more likely is that all or parts of the Burnside Bridge will need to be replaced to provide a regional lifeline in the case of a major seismic event.

Other options that fared poorly in the assessment by the county’s consultants include preserving the Burnside Bridge, performing a full retrofit, and bolstering a different bridge, such as the Morrison. Though these alternatives scored low, planners cautioned nothing has been decided yet.

The county’s project manager, Megan Neill, said the “universe of options” for a Burnside Bridge upgrade is expected to be reduced enough by next fall for a recommendation to be presented to the Board of County Commissioners. After approval, around a decade could pass before project completion.

The meeting of stakeholders was the second of four. Interested parties have included the Old Town Chinatown Community Association, the Central Eastside Industrial Council, the Portland Saturday Market and Burnside Skatepark users. Wide-ranging discussions at this meeting and previous ones have covered how Portland will respond to a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake – specifically, how it will clear debris and kick-start commerce.

The project is one of several efforts by governments in the region to prepare for fallout of a major quake. Metro is drafting a debris management plan, and the Portland Bureau of Transportation is preparing a plan for transportation recovery and a plan for upgrading unreinforced masonry buildings.

Dan Yates, director of the Portland Spirit, said his business signed an agreement with the city years ago to provide ferry service across the Willamette River in case of a major disaster.

He and others mused at the meeting about how Portlanders would respond when tested by disaster.

“I bet this city surprises itself,” he said. “People will do remarkable things after a big event.”

None of inner Portland’s bridges are expected to fare well in a major earthquake. Even TriMet‘s young Tilikum Crossing is compromised by highly liquefiable soil beneath its approaches. The county’s two most recent large bridge replacements, the Sauvie Island Bridge ($48 million) and the Sellwood Bridge ($215 million), both meet current seismic code, but the crossings aren’t considered good seismic lifelines due to their locations and other factors.

“It’s really a call to action,” Neill said. “People wonder why we’re focusing on a bridge in Portland, but we feel it’s important to the entire region to restore service to the Burnside.”

Like the Tilikum Crossing, the soils under the Burnside Bridge are highly liquefiable and expected at the east approach to move toward the river more than 20 feet. This will have to be addressed in whichever plan is adopted.

One space likely to be significantly affected is the Burnside Skatepark, which was constructed off-the-books in the 1990s among the bridge abutments on the bridge’s east side.

“It feels to me that there are going to be some kind of impacts to the skate park no matter what alternative we talk about,” said Jeff Heilman of consultancy Parametrix. “There are certainly needs in those existing columns.”

The skate park’s designated representative was not in attendance Thursday.

Stakeholders at the meeting acknowledged another major challenge: informing constituents. The county recently scored a win in this regard. It paid $135,000 to engineering firm HDR to create a realistic video rendering of the bridge during an earthquake. It’s so far gotten more than 50,000 views.

(Editor’s note: This story has been modified from an original version to reflect the correct price for a video rendering of the Burnside Bridge during an earthquake.)

The post Burnside Bridge upgrade options pared down appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.