The Redd on Salmon Street – a $23 million, two-block Ecotrust adaptive reuse development in Portland’s Central Eastside – is nearing completion.

Designed to support local food producers, distributors, chefs and others involved in food enterprises, the Redd is being constructed in two phases. The first, Redd West, was completed in 2015. The former distribution hub sits on Southeast Salmon Street between 7th and 8th avenues, and features more than 20,000 square feet of warehouse space serving cold storage, packaging and distribution needs. It also has three commercial kitchens.

Redd East, on track to come online soon, will provide a sizable event center for hosting food-related events, activities and classes. There will be a main event hall, meeting rooms and community kitchens for events. Operations are expected to begin by the end of this year, with a grand opening scheduled to follow next March.

A century ago, the Redd East building originally was the Hesse-Erstead Ironworks. Today, a large metal press and a pair of looming gantry cranes are the only remaining pieces of that operation. They’re being retained, but little else will – in large part because of what had to be done to shore up the building.

“I’d say the main thing has been the structural issues in trying to get this thing upgraded,” said Brian Layman, a superintendent with general contractor Walsh Construction. “It was seismically retrofitted, and you’ll see the big brace frames inside. We ended up holding the building up from the inside and then replacing walls, essentially, so a lot of this building is a new building. That was definitely challenging, just trying to keep it supported as we were working underneath it.”

Walsh Construction also served as general contractor for Redd West; Urban Patterns Architecture designed both phases.

Currently, interior and exterior finish work is proceeding on Redd East, which will retain much of its raw, industrial character. A mix of reclaimed and new wood is being used on the interior, including cedar beams from the Coquille tribe.

“The trim around the windows is reclaimed fir,” Layman said. “But most of the other wood paneling is from the Ecotrust forest, and they’re finishing up a room right now – that wood is from the tribe that donated to the project.”

Currently, Art Cortez Construction is installing drywall, Burgener’s Woodworking is performing interior finishes, McDonald & Wetle Inc. is carrying out roofing improvements, Merit Electrical Inc. is performing electrical work, Peninsula Plumbing Co. is handling plumbing, Bealer Construction is taking care of siding, American Heating is handling HVAC, Culver Glass is building storefronts, and Hillebrand Construction is finishing right-of-way concrete work.

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The Redd on Salmon Street, a Southeast Portland project, faced some stiff competition in its category of the 2015 SXSW Eco Awards. The Ecotrust food production and distribution campus went up against projects like composting toilets that also fuel cook stoves for schools in rural Kenya, clean water systems in Beirut and rapid deployment Ebola clinics in Africa.

Nevertheless, won the Place by Design award for resilience at the event earlier this month in Austin, Texas.

“It was a real honor just to be on stage with the other people pitching,” Ecotrust’s Nathan Kadish said. “For a panel of designers, none of whom we knew, and all are prominent, to recognize this as the winning project was really flattering. It’s a recognition that the project, overall, is creatively thinking about food systems in a new way. To have Portland and Ecotrust recognized for leading the charge on that is phenomenal.”

SXSW Eco is an organization dedicated to creating space for business leaders, investors, innovators and designers to drive economic, environmental and social change.

The team developing the Redd is hoping that it will nurture a robust regional food economy. The project is being developed on a two-block site at the corner of Southeast Salmon Street and Seventh Avenue. Together, two buildings – the Marble and the Foundry – will provide 80,000 square feet for tenants.

The Marble now has warehouse space available for dry and refrigerated storage, aggregation, packaging and distribution. Also, the building will offer more than 6,000 square feet of storefront space.

The Foundry is a 97-year-old former ironworks building that Ecotrust purchased earlier this year. A number of spaces inside will be devoted to food production.

The project team is tackling the Redd in three phases; Ecotrust is hoping to be completely finished by fall 2016.

Kadish would like to see the award for resilience help spread the word about the Redd and potentially convince producers to become tenants.

“My hope is that some of the folks in the crowd from some of the major markets will take notice,” he said. “I hope that we can potentially end up with a tenant who says, ‘Wow, I want to relocate my business from Denver, or San Francisco, or Austin, or Brooklyn to Portland because Portland is really on the forefront of thinking of this.’ Or (one might) say, ‘I want to expand to Portland and the Redd really seems like the right place to locate my business.’ ”

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Ecotrust has announced the availability of 20,000 square feet of move-in-ready and build-to-suit retail, industrial and office space in The Redd on Salmon Street campus.

Ecotrust is developing the new urban campus in Portland’s Central Eastside to nurture a robust regional food economy. The space available includes: a highly visible storefront location with up to 10,000 square feet for restaurant or related business; unobstructed warehouse floor space with 24-foot ceilings, an overhead crane, loading areas and bay doors; production office space for food-related businesses ranging from 1,400 to 19,900 square feet.

Two buildings make up The Redd on Salmon Street campus at the corner of Salmon and Southeast Seventh Avenue.

The first building, The Marble building, includes ample warehouse space for on-site dry and refrigerated storage and built-in last-mile logistics.

The second structure, The Foundry, is a 1918 former ironworks building. It was purchased by Ecotrust earlier this year. Ecotrust expects to begin renovation of the building this fall for occupation in the fall 2016.

Together, the buildings will compose a two-block, 80,000-square-foot food production and distribution campus.

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