The first new development to be completed in the Tigard Triangle Urban Renewal Area has its first tenants.

Even while cleanup was taking place and finishes were being applied, the first two residents of the 48-unit Red Rock Creek Commons affordable housing complex were moving in. The new building is at 11090 S.W. 68th Parkway, slightly south of the intersection with Oregon Route 99W. The project was built by general contractor LMC Construction and designed by Carleton Hart Architecture for Community Partners for Affordable Housing (CPAH).

Ground was broken in summer 2019, but this year LMC Construction faced last-minute design changes, COVID-19 and wildfire smoke. Recently, the team attained a temporary certificate of occupancy.

“These guys worked very hard to bring this in pretty much ahead of schedule despite the COVID challenges that hit, the wildfires that shut us down for a couple of days and the smoke,” LMC Construction Vice President Kyle Anderson said. “It went surprisingly well, considering it was 2020.”

Each apartment has one bedroom. A large community room with a kitchen and other community spaces allow residents to gather for events. Also, access was created to the natural area around Red Rock Creek.

A lounge on the ground floor is designed as a doorless extension of the corridor, but exists as a separate space. It hosts mailboxes, bicycle storage and a lending library as well as provides access to an outdoor deck that overlooks the natural area.

The exterior is marked by cedar siding at ground level, along with composite siding for the upper three floors. Metal-panel accents feature under each window, while architectural metal sunshades are affixed to the edges of south-facing windows to prevent interior heat buildup.

Construction did not take place without difficulty, according to LMC project manager Aaron McGuire.

“Originally, with the design of the building, we were going to have a crawl space, not a slab on grade,” he said. “Right before we started construction we changed that and did a slab on grade. But the topography of the site meant that we had to bring so much rock back in to get us to that point. We ran into some grading issues along the way because of it. It was a very challenging grade, but it was a fun challenge to get through that process.”

That was true, McGuire added, not only from a design and engineering standpoint, but from a management one as well.

“With challenges obviously comes the financial piece that plays into it, and the project schedule and budget,” he said. “Again, with the climate, the fire and smoke delays and COVID, we were able to get it done on time and get these residents in relatively quickly.”

Anderson and McGuire both noted that the fact LMC has worked with both Carleton Hart and CPAH in the past made these things easier to surmount.

“We lost six days alone to the wildfires and smoke, but we were able to recoup that time,” McGuire said. “We were in the finishes stage working the exterior of the building, trying to get the rest of the cladding up, working the irrigation and starting site work, so a lot of the outdoor activities could not be achieved because of that.”

Some subcontractors couldn’t even get their crews on site during that time, Anderson added. But perseverance prevailed.

“It was a great team out here,” McGuire said. “Everyone came together and realized if we have obstacles we need to address them quickly and then figure out another avenue or a design change that they’re willing to accept within a good time frame to achieve that schedule.”

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Team members are in the final stages of planning for a pair of Portland-metro-area affordable housing projects.

Ground is set to be broken later this year on both Cedar Grove, a four-story, 44-unit building at the junction of Northwest Cornell Road and Murray Boulevard in Beaverton, and Red Rock Creek Commons, a four-story, 48-unit building at the intersection of Southwest 68th Parkway and Pacific Highway (99W) in Tigard. They’re expected to be delivered at some point next year.

Community Partners for Affordable Housing (CPAH), a Tigard-based nonprofit, is the developer for both projects; Carleton Hart Architecture is designing them to Earth Advantage gold standards, and LMC Construction is building them.

CPAH manages eight low-income apartment buildings in the metro area. It has long worked with Carleton Hart Architecture.

“We have 20-plus years history with them,” Carleton Hart co-founder Brian Carleton said. “They’ve been a really good client. And it’s not just repeat business but values – shared values. They have a real focus on community and in life in the neighborhood where their office is. They see us as part of the family.”

Red Rock Creek Commons will be among the first new developments within the Tigard Triangle Urban Renewal Area. All apartments will have one bedroom, and the complex will offer a community room for tenants. Eight of the units will be reserved for individuals suffering from permanent mental illness.

A natural cedar finish will dominate Red Rock Creek Commons’ ground-floor façade, said architect Melissa Soots, the design lead for both projects. Fiber cement panels will accent that finish on the upper three floors. Interior spaces will have soothing green and blue tones, and be able to receive ample natural light.

“We don’t want it to feel institutional, so it’s a balance of providing something that will last but that feels like home,” Soots said. “We’re bringing in natural accents whenever we can, with softer edges and softer finishes, and we’re just diving into that interior side of it right now.”

Cedar Grove’s apartments will range from studios to three-bedroom units. A public plaza with a water feature will be built at the entrance. The Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District will maintain the plaza as part of a partnership with CPAH.

“The shape of the building is really determined by the streets’ shape,” Soots said. “It has a skewed ‘H’ shape, and it gave us the opportunity for courtyards on both sides of the building. We’re thinking of it as a public plaza.”

The building will feature mainly brick, but also a bio-based wood composite paneling made from rice husks.

Both projects are in the permitting process; construction is expected to start later this year.

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Crews with LMC Construction are performing punch list work on The Barcelona at Beaverton, a new four-story affordable housing project at Southwest Lombard Avenue and First Street. Substantial completion was reached last month on the 47-unit structure, which was designed by Carleton Hart Architecture for Community Partners for Affordable Housing.

The building includes 41 one-bedroom units, three two-bedrooms and three studios, as well as ground-floor community room and computer room, a top-floor patio and gathering space, and tuck-under parking.

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Residential development is booming in Beaverton, and the city is spurring growth in its downtown by selling or leasing land to developers.

Cheryl Twete, Beaverton’s community development director, predicts that the city’s Old Town neighborhood will be dramatically transformed by development in the next five years. The city is stimulating it by buying property there and sponsoring residential development competitions.

One development competition site is an entire city block at Southwest First and Lombard streets. A four-story apartment building, The Barcelona at Beaverton, being built there by nonprofit Community Partners for Affordable Housing will offer rent-controlled senior housing. A second four-story building called La Scala, with more market-based rents, will be built on the same block by RKM Development Inc.

Construction of The Barcelona began in 2014 and is set for completion by the end of the year.

According to information at , the four-story building will hold 41 one-bedroom units, three two-bedroom units and three studios. The building will include community rooms, an office and laundry rooms. Eight of the units will be fully accessible, including one with features to aid individuals with sight or hearing impairments. Each unit will have an outdoor balcony and be oriented to maximize views and natural light.

Most La Scala units will be market rate, but some will be affordable, with rents in the range of 60 to 120 percent of median income, said Tyler Ryerson, Beaverton’s senior development project manager.

Jeff Oberst, construction manager for RKM Development, said his company will break ground on the La Scala development in June and that construction will last about a year. The building will be mixed use, with 44 apartment units over 5,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor.

Old Town is prime for development, Twete said, with “good bones” like good streets and sidewalks.

“Our Old Town is on a street grid much like the east side of Portland with a mix of uses,” she said. “It feels like a downtown and it feels urban.”

The city is also working with Rembold Properties to build an 85-unit market-rate multifamily building on city-owned land in Old Town at First and Angel streets with ground-floor commercial spaces, Twete said.

“Rembold will buy the land at closing when they are ready to start development,” she said. “We bought the property and helped relocate businesses, did some cleanup and made it development ready.”

With both developments at the First and Lombard block, the city will retain ownership of the land but lease it long-term.

“There is a big need for housing here, but we are being very strategic in what we want to strengthen and activate in our Old Town area,” Twete said. “We want to make sure we provide housing for a whole range of people.”

Private developers are also busy in Old Town, Twete said, planning for a 70-unit apartment complex between Franklin and Tucker streets.

“It’s a great site and developers recognize there’s a desire that people want to live closer in to transit and the urban core,” she said.

That shows the city investment is paying off, Twete said.

“The city is taking the lead by sponsoring a couple of projects and the private sector is following suit and moving forward with their own projects,” she said.

The only holdups to development in downtown Beaverton, she said, are old families hesitant to give up land to development.

“Beaverton is an old farming community founded in the 1800s,” she said. “We have a lot of history in the community and several families have held their property for generations.”

But the markets and community have changed, she said, and the land is not farmland any more. Twete said the city is working with those families to see if agreements can be reached to open their land up for development.

“We want to change from an emotional discussion about land to doing something good for the community,” she said.

Beaverton watches Portland “pretty carefully” to see what works, Twete said, and like Portland, Beaverton is trying to attract a young workforce with specific needs.

“We hear CEOs talking about proximity to transit or where employees can go to lunch or run errands on their lunch hour,” Twete said. “It’s mind-boggling in an exciting way and creates a lot of new opportunities.”

Beaverton is always looking for new opportunities, but in a systematic way. After three years of an extensive public process, the city recently adopted the Creekside District Master Plan for 50 acres in downtown.

As part of that master plan vision, the city recently closed acceptance for requests for qualifications for development of its Westgate site. The city and Metro own the four-acre site, which is adjacent to the city’s central light rail station. Three RFQs have been received, Twete said, and Beaverton City Council will consider them in early June.

Also, in 2011 Beaverton adopted an urban redevelopment plan that Twete said is just now beginning to generate tax increment dollars to help the city foster more development.

“Next year we are expecting over $1 million (in tax increment money),” she said. “Now we can go out and implement policy directions established by the (city) council and create an urban renewal plan and decide how to spend the (dollars).”

Up to 49 percent of the tax increment money can be spent on infrastructure, she said. It can also be spent on development and redevelopment, but not on public buildings.

As Portland grows, so Beaverton grows, Twete said, but Beaverton has some advantages, like lower rents and land values, and a city government actively involved in development.

“We view as our job to work with the development community and help ease some of the risks or concerns,” she said. “Pave the way and others will follow.”

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Construction is under way on The Barcelona at Beaverton, an four-story multifamily project developed by Community Partners for Affordable Housing. General contractor LMC Construction began work on the Carleton Hart Architecture-designed project last November.

The wood-framed building will feature a total of 47 residential units – 41 one-bedrooms, three two-bedrooms and three studios – as well as a ground-floor community room, kitchen, and office space, and at-grade tuck-under parking.  The project is slated for completion in late October.

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is completing a tenant improvement for , an affordable housing developer, at The Watershed at Hillsdale building in Southwest Portland. The four-year-old building contains 51 affordable rental housing units for seniors, as well as the administrative offices of CPAH. Improvements were made to a previously vacant 1793-square-foot space on the ground level. It now includes a kitchenette, office spaces for CPAH employees, restrooms, and a community event and neighborhood flex space. Work began in mid-April and was completed last week.

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The city of Beaverton announced today its plans to develop two mixed-use buildings on city-owned space in partnership with a private development team.

One of the buildings, developed by , will have 48 units of affordable housing with 1,700 square feet of open-to-the-public community space. will develop a separate building with 55 units of workforce/market-rate housing with 7,200 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

“Roy Kim and Central Bethany Development have a very successful track record in developing this type of project in a suburban setting,” said Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle in a statement today. “Their development of the Bethany area is one of the best in all of Washington County—I know that Mr. Kim will deliver an outstanding development in Central Beaverton.”

Both buildings will sit on a block at the corner of Southwest First Street and Lombard Avenue, a property the city purchased in June for $1.07 million. Beaverton issued a request for proposals for developers in July, and Community Partners for Affordable Housing was one of two firms that submitted applications.

Beaverton Community Development Director Don Mazziotti said the details of the public-private partnership will be laid out in a disposition and development agreement to be negotiated soon. The city’s contribution might include a long-term lease of the property, he said.

The existing buildings on the site are currently being deconstructed.

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Two development teams have submitted proposals to redevelop a block at the corner of Southwest First Street and Lombard Avenue in Beaverton that the city purchased earlier this year.

Both and submitted proposals before the city’s Sept. 20 deadline to do so. An evaluation team made up of city officials and staffers will now take the month of October to evaluate the proposals and interview the project teams before selecting a development partner for the project.

A development team made up of Catholic Charities and Caritas Housing had prequalified along with the other two teams to submit a plan on the request for proposals, but decided to pull out after learning more about the project, according to Jordan Imlah, a spokesman for the city of Beaverton.

While the details of the project proposals have yet to be released, Community Development Director Don Mazziotti has made it clear the city is hoping for a mixed-use development with about 70 to 80 units of workforce housing over ground-floor retail.

The city purchased the property in June with $1.07 million of general fund money that had been set aside for strategic property investments. City officials saw the site, which had a building on it before being demolished in the summer, as a good development opportunity that could help connect Old Town Beaverton to downtown.

According to the timeline set out in the RFP, city officials expect to have a development team selected by the end of August, a non-binding memorandum of understanding signed by mid November and negotiations beginning for a disposition and development agreement by the end of the year.

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The city of Beaverton is one step closer to finding a developer to create workforce housing on a land parcel it purchased earlier this year.

Three developers are prequalified to purchase and redevelop a city-owned block at the southwest corner of First Street and Lombard Avenue. The teams – Portland-based Blankslate Development, Catholic Charities/Caritas Housing and Community Partners for Affordable Housing – now will go through a request for proposals process.

The city of Beaverton purchased the property in June with $1.07 million of general fund money that had been set aside for strategic property investments. A building on the property was deconstructed last month. Don Mazziotti, community and economic development director for the city, envisions the property being transformed into a four- or five-story building with 70 or 80 units of workforce housing over ground-floor retail space.

The firms have three months to respond to the RFP with a detailed plan of how they plan to purchase and develop the property. A firm should be selected sometime in October, Mazziotti said, and could potentially start construction by November.

Though the city owns the property, Mazziotti doesn’t expect much public investment. The site sits in the city’s proposed new urban renewal area, but construction would likely start before voters even get a chance to vote on the URA.

City officials hope the project will not only provide workforce housing – essentially housing for families that make less than $66,900 a year – but also help bridge the gap between Beaverton’s Old Town and downtown areas.

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After four years of planning, and more than $100,000 spent on predevelopment and architectural costs, a budget shortfall has led to the death of a housing project planned for the Multnomah Village neighborhood.

The Portland Housing Bureau last week announced that it will not purchase the 3.7-acre Sgt. Jerome Sears U.S. Army Reserve Center that the city intended to turn into mixed-income housing. The city earlier determined that affordable housing is needed in the area and would be the best use for the site, but it is now looking at the possibility of turning the site into an emergency response center.

“After analyzing our capital resources against the level of investment needed to undertake the planned development in the current financial climate, (the Portland Housing Bureau) has determined that we simply lack necessary capital funding to support the hoped-for affordable housing project on this site,” bureau director Margaret Van Vliet stated in a letter to stakeholders last week. “Our determination is based on many factors, not the least of which is our current understanding that the city is very unlikely to secure the site at no cost, which was an original hope to make the project financially feasible.”

In 2006 the U.S. Department of Defense identified the site, which the U.S. Army Reserves presently uses as office space, as surplus property. At that time the DOD extended an invitation to local municipalities to use federal money to determine the best possible use for surplus properties and possibly purchase them. The municipality could do this up until when the base closed. The Sears center is scheduled to close in September.

The city jumped on the opportunity and conducted a potential reuse study on the site, with an emphasis on the possibility of it accommodating low-income housing. The DOD had noted that the property, which is valued at around $3 million, could be acquired at a discount, or possibly for free, if such a use were employed. But the city recently was informed by the DOD that it wouldn’t be able to acquire the property for free.

After determining that affordable housing was a major need in the area, the city selected a proposal from local nonprofit Community Partners for Affordable Housing for 85 multifamily rental units and 25 single-family homes. The city selected the mixed-income housing project over proposals for a new high school, new space for Portland Community College and a headquarters building for Volunteers of America.

According to David Sheern, a program coordinator with the housing bureau, its solicitation drew a number of different proposals. He said the bureau chose the CPAH proposal primarily because of the federal government’s emphasis on affordable housing and the area’s need for it.

“We are obviously disappointed,” said CPAH’s executive director, Sheila Greenlaw-Fink. “We submitted our first letter for this project in December of 2006 and it has built an incredible amount of steam and excitement since. To see it end like this is sad.”

Greenlaw-Fink said the biggest disappointment – more so than the wasted time, money and effort invested – is the loss of one of the few vacant lots zoned appropriately for CPAH’s proposed project.

Van Vliet said the area’s need for affordable housing could still be met by two other projects. The Housing Authority of Portland is moving forward with its 182-unit Hillsdale Terrace project, and Reach Community Development is planning to build a 209-unit complex in the South Waterfront District.

Greenlaw-Fink, however, said that the advantage of the Sears center site is its proximity to public transit along Southwest Barbur Boulevard.

“All of our projects follow that road, and this one would have continued that,” Greenlaw-Fink said. “But we do understand the situation. The city wanted a discount on the property and when that didn’t happen, it made the project not feasible even if the money was available.”

The nonprofit could seek other funding sources for the project; however, Greenlaw-Fink noted that these types of projects don’t usually work without funding from local municipalities.

“They are the catalyst,” she said. “If they don’t put money on the front of a project like this, it’s going to be hard.”

The city is still looking at ways to acquire the property. Mayor Sam Adams last week made a pitch to the Multnomah Neighborhood Association for an emergency staging area. Such a proposal was supported by the community previously; Southwest Portland presently does not have a center for emergency response equipment.

The site would be used as a staging area and for storage of equipment like plows, bulldozers and emergency supplies. The city next will review the proposal at a Feb. 1 public forum at City Hall.

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