For eight years, the Portland Development Commission patiently cobbled together four blocks at the eastern end of the Burnside Bridge.

City leaders thought the area could serve as a gateway to downtown from East Portland, and so the PDC in 1998 began acquiring properties there.

Revitalization of the area had a long way to go. The Convention Plaza building was a second-rate office property, and the surrounding area had little going on.

Yet the site offered 4 acres of close-in land fronting the Willamette River on one of Portland’s busiest streets.

Development there would be aided by maximum height allowances of 200 feet, a generous floor-to-area ratio of nine-to-one and central employment (EXd) zoning.

Today, the area is bustling with construction and activity. Guerrilla Development‘s colorful Fair-Haired Dumbbell is under construction, while Beam Development and Urban Development + Partners‘ Slate and Key Development and Guardian Real Estate Services‘ Yard are fully built. Additional projects are at various stages of development.

“It’s a really interesting site in Portland, an interesting opportunity,” said Jeff Pickhardt, a Key Development principal. “It’s basically the epicenter of Portland, and it had been a blighted site for a long time.”

Initially, the PDC inked a memorandum of understanding with Opus Northwest, a subsidiary of Minnesota-based Opus Group, for podium-and-tower construction on the entire property. But Opus was hit hard by the Great Recession in 2008 and ’09, and the deal dissolved.

The PDC – led at the time by Executive Director Bruce Warner under then-mayor Sam Adams – restarted. The agency brought in Beam Development, a local firm that had performed several well-regarded rehabilitations of historic buildings, as a strategic adviser to craft a new framework plan.

Crucially, instead of seeking one large developer to take the entire site, the PDC moved to bring in multiple developers.

“It was smart on PDC’s part to have some diversity of development groups,” said Jonathan Malsin, a Beam Development principal. “We understood that that could lead to a better result of having a mix of architectural styles and product types.”

Beam Development was invited to redevelop a parcel in the area. The firm, led by Brad Malsin and his son, Jonathan, chose the Convention Plaza building, which since opening in 1926 had served at various times as a military barracks, a soup kitchen and offices before being targeted for demolition. But instead of knocking it down, Beam renovated the property at 123 N.E. Third Avenue into the Eastside Exchange.

Cascade Energy Inc. was the first tenant to take space in the 80,000-square-foot building, and then the Technology Association of Oregon and the Oregon Film Office followed.

Beam Development opened the door for others to step into the area, Pickhardt said.

“You could credit Beam and really PDC for activating that part of town,” he said. “Beam was heavily involved in the framework plan, and they really took the first step at the bridgehead. Their work early on, and particularly Eastside Exchange, was a catalyst for others to follow suit.”

In the wake of the Great Recession, most developers were not in a position to redevelop 4 acres of urban property. Parceling out the four-plus blocks over time enabled the PDC to spread the financial risk among several developers.

Key Development had investigated developing a large project in the Burnside bridgehead area in 2010. The Hood River company was interested in making its mark in Portland. After Beam developed Eastside Exchange, Key jumped in with bids for Block 67 and a portion of Block 76. Block 67 became Yard, a 21-story tower with 284 residential units and ground-floor retail space.

Yard attracted criticism for its dark appearance and unbroken mass, but Key Development and Guardian Real Estate Services sold the building in December to a Thailand-based company for $126.68 million after an unsolicited offer.

After completion of the Eastside Exchange, Beam and UD+P followed with Slate, a 10-story mixed-use project on Block 75. The Works Progress Architecture-designed building has 75 market-rate apartments and 45,000 square feet of commercial space. The building opened in November.

Guerrilla Development’s Fair-Haired Dumbbell – two six-story buildings totaling 56,000 square feet – is rising on Block 76. A June completion date is targeted for the office and retail project, developer Kevin Cavenaugh has said.

Cavenaugh used a unique crowdfunding mechanism to raise $1.5 million for the $18 million project. The façade will have a colorful design by Los Angeles artist James Jean, setting the project apart from Slate’s light-colored boxes and Yard’s dark appearance.

Meanwhile, Key Development is preparing to break ground on the western portion of Block 76 for a six-story, 22,000-square-foot commercial building, Pickhardt said. That project has received design approval from the city of Portland.

Development continues to radiate outward from the 4 acres comprising the Burnside Bridgehead Framework Plan formed in 2010. To the east, Dallas-based Trinsic Residential Group is building Aura Burnside. The six-story multifamily building at 55 N.E. Grand Ave. will include 167 residential units; it’s scheduled to open in late summer.

To the south, Gerding Edlen plans to build a 17-story mixed-use building at 5 S.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. 5 MLK, as the project is known, is set to include approximately 220 apartments, 10,000 square feet of commercial space and 170 underground parking spaces. 5 MLK is being designed by GREC Architects of Chicago.

At 17 S.E. Third Ave., Sentinel Development and Westport Capital are rehabilitating the 108,600-square-foot Towne Storage building into creative office space. LRS Architects is designing the project, and Bremik Construction is serving as general contractor.

At 230 E. Burnside St., Arthur Mutal and NFN Investments completed adaptive reuse of the 16,400-square-foot R.J. Templeton Building into creative office and retail space in 2014.

ESI Group designed and constructed a 28,720-square-foot warehouse rehabilitation for New Seasons Market’s central kitchen at Southeast Second Avenue and Ash Street.

More properties could be developed in coming years. Cairn Pacific owns property at 811 E. Burnside St. that hosts an eclectic collection of local shops. There are no current plans to develop the property, located across Burnside Street from the Doug Fir Lounge and the Jupiter Hotel, but that could change as the neighborhood develops, Cairn Pacific founding principal Tom DiChiara said.

“It was sleepy down there for a long time,” he said.

Not so now. Looking back, backers of Burnside bridgehead redevelopment are proud of their work.

“It’s amazing that it’s all come together like it has in a relatively short period of time,” Pickhardt said. “To get that scale of development done collaboratively with the neighbors and PDC is remarkable.”

Geraldene Moyle, now a senior project manager at the PDC, said the city was able to be nimble in acquiring the parcels and selling them for fair market value. Developers had to work around a Portland Bureau of Transportation couplet project, elevation changes and other issues.

“I think it’s been successful,” she said. “Based on what we owned, based on the constraints of the site, the couplet, the height, we were able to deliver a site that fulfilled the goals of the framework plan.”

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