A large multifamily development proposed for the Kerns neighborhood needs additional design work before it can proceed.

Though the Hacker-designed Dairy Apartments received a design review hearing on Thursday, the Portland Design Commission declined to even vote whether to approve the project.

As proposed, the seven-story, 271-unit building would be constructed on a 0.92-acre site – the former home of Sunshine Dairy – between Northeast 20th and 21st avenues and Pacific and Oregon streets. The site is a block south of Interstate 84 and three blocks north of Sandy Boulevard. Plans call for ground-floor retail space and residential units slightly above grade.

On Thursday, the same issue that was raised during a design advice hearing this past summer came up again.

“My primary concern is the height of the stoops,” Commissioner Zari Santner said. “I encourage you to look into reducing the six-foot stoop down to four-feet-five inches or even four-feet-eight.”

The question of stoops for the ground-floor apartments and their impact on the public realm is one of the largest outstanding issues for designers to resolve. By contract, design commissioners praised other project aspects, including the use of weathering steel paneling on the exterior, as well as the massing.

“The massing is fantastic – it’s great, it’s courageous and it does frame the Telegraph Building, which is a landmark in that neighborhood,” Commissioner Sam Rodriguez said.

Eastbank, an affiliate of property owner NBP Capital, is developing the project. NBP Capital purchased the site and adjacent property in February for $8.1 million.

A single-level, full-block, underground parking garage is proposed, with access from Northeast Oregon Street to the south. Two loading spaces would also be provided at the parking garage level.

Several other adjustments have been requested by the Hacker team, including reduction of total vehicular parking required from 240 to 90; reduction of window area on the ground floor; increase of façade articulation; and reduction of spacing of long-term bike racks on site to allow planting areas between the sidewalk and the street.

Parking may be the stickiest of those issues. City code requires multifamily developments not in close proximity to public transit to provide roughly a one-to-one ratio of parking spaces to units. In this case, however, the building would be just one block away from meeting the definition of “close proximity,” and applicants wish to house all vehicle parking in a single-level parking garage. Many neighbors oppose this plan, and several of them wrote letters to the Design Commission expressing their concerns. One other individual testified during Thursday’s hearing.

“It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful building, but my major concern is the reduced parking,” said Scott Eckelman, who owns a business less than a block away from the development site.

The project team is now scheduled to return before the Design Commission at a hearing on Dec. 19.

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The Portland Design Commission last week offered nearly unanimous praise during a design advice hearing for a full-block apartment building that would replace a former Sunshine Dairy facility in Northeast Portland. Criticism was fairly specific in scope and was limited to a few nuances.

The Dairy Apartments are being designed by Hacker Architects for developer Eastbank, an affiliate of owner NBP Capital, which acquired the site and adjacent properties earlier this year for $8.1 million. The building would contain six floors of apartments over one level of below-grade parking. The 244 apartments units would have floorplans ranging from studios to three bedrooms, and ten affordable units would be included in accordance with inclusionary housing requirements.

The building consists of two seemingly separate towers connected at the ground floor. Ground-level apartments will feature a raised stoop that separates balconies from the sidewalk.

“It’s really well thought out,” Commissioner Zari Santner said. “This is modern, but it is borrowing from the vocabulary of nature as well as some of the industrial past.”

Commissioners were united in at least one criticism, which concerned the ground-level stoop. As proposed, the balcony would sit over 5 feet above the sidewalk, which commissioners said would create an unpleasant pedestrian experience. Commissioner Jessica Molinar described the ground floor as feeling like a “fortress” and said she has seen similar stoops in the Pearl District which didn’t work well for pedestrians.

Commissioner Brian McCarter said the proposed 5-foot-6-inch height is too much, but said a height between 2 and 3 feet would be effective.

Chairwoman Julie Livingston was more pointed in her critique, bringing attention to a lack of canopies or cover on the building’s sides, which are needed to keep pedestrians dry. She emphasized that it’s important to shield not only residents and visitors, but also people that are simply walking by.

Her main focus was on the building’s similarity to another Hacker-designed project, the TwentyTwenty Condominiums, which are located less than a quarter mile north on 21^st Avenue.

“I think you need more generations in between the TwentyTwenty and this,” Livingston said. “This needs to be the 5.0 or the 6.0.”

With two similar buildings so close together, Livingston said she worried about setting a precedent for the neighborhood’s style.

While the old dairy building itself will be demolished to make way for the apartments, the design team plans to preserve an old telegraph building and antenna tower at the north end of the site, which it said has an iconic presence in Portland.

Located on Northeast 21^st Avenue, the Dairy Apartments are the latest addition to a spate of recent development near the Sandy Boulevard corridor. The site is expected to become part of a designated pedestrian district by the end of the year, and a future bus route is expected to run by the building, although funding has not yet been secured and those plans could be at least five years out.

The project will return before the commission for a design review hearing at a date yet to be set.

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A Portland-based company has snapped up a property near Northeast Sandy Boulevard in the latest demonstration that developers see strong bones for future growth in the midcentury auto corridor.

NBP Capital has purchased the former Sunshine Dairy building and adjacent properties totaling 1.2 acres for $8.1 million, and is now looking to develop it.

An early assistance request filed with the city of Portland indicates NBP Capital is considering plans for a 271,000-square-foot mixed-use building. It would hold 300 to 350 apartments, including a percentage of rent-restricted inclusionary housing units. The building would be seven stories, but also have one floor of below-grade parking.

“Our business plan will consider vertical development of the Sunshine Dairy site,” NBP Capital Vice President Ryan Feigelson stated in a news release. “When we first saw this deal, we were initially drawn to the rapid transition and development of the immediately surrounding area. NBP Capital is excited to be a part of the area’s continued growth and long-term future.”

Feigelson was out of the office and did not respond to messages seeking additional comment. The company, which has Los Angeles billionaire Nicolas Berggruen as a passive capital partner, has a track record as a long-term holder of capital assets.

NBP Capital purchased the property from Karamanos Holdings Inc. CBRE‘s Charles Safley, Josh McDonald, Joe Nydahl and Phil Oester represented the seller. NBP Capital represented itself in the deal. The transaction closed on Feb. 12.

The move is the latest from NBP Capital, which has steadily expanded its footprint in Portland’s commercial real estate market. The company, which also has an office in Los Angeles, purchased the former Multnomah County Courthouse building for $28 million. NBP Capital also is co-owner of the Woodlark Hotel, which opened recently in downtown Portland following a renovation.

NBP Capital is in the early stages of developing the proposed RiverPlace site in the South Waterfront District. The 8-acre site could have up to 3 million gross square feet of buildable area, according to a pre-application notice filed with the city.

The Sunshine Dairy holdings comprise parcels at 801, 915 and 959 N.E. 21st Ave. The land is zoned for large-scale commercial mixed-use with a design overlay, or CM3(d). The zoning allows for high capacity commercial development.

“It is such a flexible zone,” said Marty Stockton, a planner with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

The maximum building height is 120 feet with a planned development review. Without the planned development review, allowable heights top out at 75 feet with bonuses.

The NBP Capital development will follow one by Security Properties on the Pepsi Blocks nearby. That 4.7-acre project will include from 485 to 1,297 housing units. Security Properties opted to undergo a planned development review to gain additional height, and the site plan won approval in December.

Both developments represent a new chapter for Sandy Boulevard, a once-gritty commercial corridor that has begun to show signs of gentrification. Before Security Properties and NBP Capital took an interest in the area, Guerrilla Development‘s Kevin Cavenaugh built there a series of adaptive-reuse commercial projects. They house hip tenants such as Han Oak, which The Oregonian named its 2017 Restaurant of the Year.

NBP Capital’s purchase is likely to only add to the growing interest around Sandy Boulevard.

“I think it’s exciting for that area,” said Joren Bass, project manager for Urban Development + Partners, a developer that is not involved in the project. “It’s really going to be a benefit for that district and neighborhood. It will be transformative.”

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