A celebration was held last week for the topping out of The Union at St. Johns, a four-story mixed-use apartment being built in North Portland by R&H Construction for developer Farid Bolouri. The Jones Architecture-designed building features three stories of wood-framed construction over a ground-floor concrete podium and a below-grade parking garage with around 90 spaces. It will have 103 residential units including studios, one- and two-bedrooms, 20,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

All of the project’s wood framing was prefabricated by Pacific Wall Systems in Medford and installed by Wood Mechanix. The weather-resistive barrier application is 25 percent complete, and window installation began last week. Next month, drywall installation will begin, masons will begin installing the brick veneer finishes, and the tower crane will come down. The project is under budget, on schedule and gaining on the completion date, which is slated for this December.

The post Photos: St. Johns project celebrates milestone appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Take TriMet’s 4 bus from downtown Portland to St. Johns, and the trip serves as a rolling tour of the gradual gentrification of North Portland.

Riders travel along trendy Mississippi Avenue, with its high-end boutiques like Paxton Gate, which sells exotic taxidermy, and then onto Albina Avenue, a historically African-American neighborhood that has seen an influx of new residents and multifamily construction.

The bus line ends at St. Johns. There, in the shadow of the iconic, spearmint-green bridge spanning the Willamette River, a transformation is about to take place.

The North Portland neighborhood, long home to industrial sites and a racially and economically diverse population, is poised to see dense multifamily and commercial development of the type that has already transformed many of Portland’s close-in Eastside neighborhoods.

Two developers are responsible for a batch of new projects: Mainland Northwest, the Portland office of a Nashville, Tennessee-based developer; and Farid Bolouri, a local dentist turned developer. They’re following in the footsteps of PHK Development. Its Marvel 29, which opened in 2015, appears in retrospect to have laid the groundwork for changes to come.

Mainland Northwest is focused on several blocks near the Willamette River.

“We’d been looking for opportunity sites where everyone else was – the Southeast, Northeast, Interstate,” said Brian Wilson, a partner in the Portland office.

Then, a broker told him about property in St. Johns.

“It is one of the last close-in, affordable neighborhoods that is walkable, with good services, that hasn’t been overbuilt,” he said.

Mainland Northwest is planning to scrape the Steel Hammer site – 14.5 riverfront acres, including 8.5 acres of buildable land – for future development. Industrial businesses such as Columbia Forge & Machine Works are moving out, and Mainland Northwest is forging ahead with plans for mixed-use construction.

Ahead of the large Steel Hammer parcels, Mainland Northwest will develop two other blocks with multifamily projects.

A brief history of St. Johns

St. Johns was once a town unto itself. James Johns settled in the area in 1844 after moving from Linnton, according to the St. Johns Neighborhood Association. By 1849, 12 families were living in the area.

The proposed Steel Hammer development site is, according to Wilson, where Johns once landed his ferry.

St. Johns was recognized by the Oregon Legislature as a municipality in 1902. It was annexed by the city of Portland in 1915.

Marvel 29

Patrick Kessi, founder and president of PHK Development Inc., developed an affinity for St. Johns after exploring the neighborhood as a University of Portland student. He eventually raised his family in the neighborhood.

“It seems like it’s its own city out there,” he said. “I really like that community feel, and the sense of community there. I felt a quality development would be well-received by the community.”

In 2014, PHK completed Marvel 29 at the keystone intersection of North Philadelphia Avenue and Ivanhoe Street. The 127,720-square-foot building has 165 multifamily units and two retail spaces of about 900 square feet each that are occupied by Hoplandia and Pizza Nostra.

PHK still owns Marvel 29, which has received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Marvel 29 was the first modern, mixed-use development with underground parking in the neighborhood. The project was leased in about six months.

“It leased up faster than what we expected,” Kessi said.

Who is behind Mainland Northwest?

Mainland Northwest, a limited liability company, is a local subsidiary of The Mainland Companies LLC. Wilson and Ben Wood are the Portland-based partners.

Wilson is a native Portlander who previously worked at his family’s real estate firm, Kalberer Company. He has also been politically active, serving on the Portland Housing Advisory Commission and, in 2014, mounting an unsuccessful campaign against Jules Bailey for a spot on the Multnomah County Commission.

Wood previously co-founded and served as managing director of Promontory Healthcare Cos. He joined Mainland through a connection to the company’s CEO, Kenneth Larish – the pair met while attending Lewis & Clark Law School.

Mainland is backed by additional private investors, Wilson said.

North Crawford Street

Mainland Northwest is awaiting a building permit to begin construction on a full block of North Crawford Street between John and Charleston avenues. Plans for the 80,000-square-foot development call for 101 units, including 11 townhomes and 11 two-bedroom units. The balance will be split evenly between one-bedroom and studio apartments. A landscaped public plaza will be included. Pavilion Construction is the general contractor, and STACK Architecture is responsible for the design.

The vacant lot is fenced off, with dense brush covering the site.

Mainland Northwest expects to have a building permit in hand by late September, and then begin construction.

North Richmond Avenue

A similar building is planned on North Richmond Avenue with approximately 80 apartment units.

“That’s on a fast track,” Wilson said.

SERA Architects is designing the project, and R&H Construction has been selected to build it.

Steel Hammer site

Mainland Northwest is in the process of buying the 14.5-acre site along North Crawford Street from Tom Leaptrott, who owns Columbia Forge & Machine Works and Steel Hammer Properties LLC. The transaction will be split into two pieces because of liability related to the area’s Superfund designation. Mainland expects to take ownership of the first parcel by the end of the year, Wilson said.

GBD Architects is at work on a riparian redevelopment master plan for the site, Wilson said. The site is targeted for significant residential and commercial development.

In 2014, Leaptrott put the property up for sale and petitioned the city of Portland to change the zoning to allow for mixed-use development.

Mainland Northwest is looking to develop the forlorn parcels, Wilson said.

“There’s a desire to find dirt that other people can’t make sense of,” he said. “We want to bring our particular vision of not impacting the surrounding historic neighborhood by not displacing people.”

Industry is no longer dependent on using riverfront property. Redeveloping it makes sense, Wilson said.

“It’s not big enough for industrial users to use,” he said. “We don’t use the river that way anymore.”

Mainland Northwest has committed to building a stretch of the Willamette River Greenway across the property. Union Pacific Railroad tracks also run adjacent to the property. Wilson said he’s had initial conversations with railroad officials.

With the three sites, and possible further development in St. Johns, Mainland Northwest is looking to build hundreds of apartments.

“It could be, ballpark, 1,000 units,” Wood said.

That may not be all: Mainland Northwest is also considering other properties in the area.

“We have a couple of other opportunities we’re kicking tires on,” Wilson said.

Who is Farid Bolouri?

A co-founder of Portland Dental Group, Bolouri previously made news when he developed in Sellwood a four-story mixed-use building that required demolition in 2013 of a 107-year-old building that housed the Black Cat Tavern.

In 2014, Bolouri purchased for $395,000 a St. Johns property at North Lombard Street and Charleston Avenue. He has moved forward with development of The Union at St. Johns – a four-story mixed-use building.

“It was a very controversial project in the neighborhood because the city actually vacated public property to him,” said Lindsay Jensen, executive director of St. Johns Main Street. She wrote the city a letter in support of the project.

Bolouri did not respond to messages seeking comment on The Union at St. Johns.

The Union at St. Johns

In a walkable area near several eateries and bars, a construction crane looms over a massive hole in the ground. The block is the future site of The Union at St. Johns, which will have 20,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space topped by 106 residential units. Plans also call for 89 below-ground parking spaces. Alan Jones of Jones Architecture designed the project, and R&H Construction is building it. Construction began earlier this summer.

What’s next?

St. Johns has seen a surge of new businesses move in. Many are in a warehouse that formerly housed Columbia Sportswear. It now hosts Occidental Brewing, a German-inspired brewery that this summer opened a wursthaus restaurant; Refuge PDX, which does special effects for the TV show “Grimm;” and Something Borrowed, which rents numerous items for weddings and other events.

The industrial area near the bridge is home to an idiosyncratic mix of businesses, including an outboard motor repair shop.

Some are leaving ahead of the coming development. Leaptrott is moving Columbia Forge & Machine Works to Washougal, Washington.

“I love St. Johns, but the city of Portland is awful to do business in,” he said, citing rampant homelessness, excessive regulation and an unfriendly business environment.

Leaptrott said he needs private security around the metalworking shop. Homeless camps sit nearby.

Many of St. Johns’ incumbent landowners are looking to sell and move on, Wilson said.

“A lot of these guys have been here for decades, and they’re on the glide path to figure out what they’re going to do with their next stage in life,” he said. “It’s a perfect transition.”

The post St. Johns en route to transformation appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The St. Johns neighborhood feels it has been burned by developers before, says Joe Purkey, an architect who lives there, but now people are getting more involved about what goes up in their community.

A good example was a July 7 between about 60 St. Johns area business owners and architect Alan Jones of Jones Architecture. Jones is working on a design for a three-building, mixed-use project in the business district of St. Johns. It will include 100 apartments, 20,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space and underground parking at North Lombard Street and North Charleston Avenue.

The project, to be called The Union at St. Johns, will be mostly small apartments and may include some affordable housing. Construction could start as early as January. Shapiro Didway is the landscape architect for the project. The developer is Milwaukie dentist Dr. Farid Bolouri, who also was at the meeting.

Purkey said businesses and residents in St. Johns have gotten more involved in asking questions about the design of buildings rising in the area since he feels they “got burned” when a large storage facility was built in the retail center of the neighborhood.

“The storage unit wasn’t the most appropriate thing for downtown retail, and community leadership wasn’t well-versed on how the process worked,” Purkey said. “They were pretty upset.”

Another project the neighbor had some gripes about was the construction of the Marvel 29 apartments at the foot of the St. John’s Bridge, according to Purkey. The project met the design rule for the neighborhood of no building over 50 feet wide by putting up strips of bricks every 50 feet.

“The city of Portland accepted the architect’s argument that the brick stripes break up the building, but it really doesn’t,” Purkey said.

AMICABLE DISCUSSION

While Jones was peppered with questions from the audience at July 7 meeting, it ended amicably, with both sides agreeing to meet again to continue the discussion.

More meetings between developers and citizens can keep development surprises from being sprung on a community, Purkey said.

One of the biggest concerns at the St. John’s meeting was the effect of traffic interruption on businesses along Lombard Street, but Jones said those would be minimal and the street will be kept open during construction. People also asked questions about bike lanes, traffic signals and more.

“We’re not reconfiguring any streets, but we are reconfiguring some traffic signals,” Jones said.

Denny Hassler, a salesman at The Man’s Shop, asked if Jones could provide a construction schedule that could be shared with other St. Johns merchants. He said business owners would also like to see some signage directing people to the downtown shopping area.

Hassler said he is concerned about traffic slowdowns affecting business.

“Our customers aren’t going to ride a bike to buy a suit,” he said.

Hassler also asked the developer for email communications about when and where any disruptive work would be going on.

“We will give you a week’s notice, at least,” owner Bolouri promised.

The work will include removing a slip lane on Lombard Street and relocating the right turn lane, which might take a couple of months, Jones said, but the street will be kept open and will only close for one- or two-hour intervals.

Construction will be in two phases, Bolouri said, starting with work on the right turn lane. Care will be taken about when big trucks make deliveries so as not to disturb the neighborhood, he said. Jones also noted that the construction site is near a school and a library, but the work will be kept out of sight behind a fence.

Bolouri said he understood the concerns of business owners.

“I enjoy development, but I’m a dentist and I’m out of business if my patients can’t get in and out,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is surprise (anyone).”

Jones said he and Bolouri plan to meet several more times with business owners and will continue to meet with the St. John’s Neighborhood Association about the project.

Jones said a regular practice during design review is to have at least one meeting with neighborhood representatives, but he believes in doing more.

“We expect to present for design review in September 2015, with construction commencing the first quarter of 2016,” Jones said.

PRESERVING CHARACTER

Purkey said he and others have gotten involved in engaging developers and designers about future projects because they don’t want to see their neighborhood’s “streetcar era architectural style” turned into something else. He said other neighborhoods, such as along North Mississippi Avenue and Division Street, were “changed drastically” by developers.

“The residents lost their neighborhood to a completely new neighborhood,” he said. “St. John’s residents have been watching (other developments) and want to make sure our community culture and architectural character remains intact as much as possible as growth happens,” he said.

“Developers coming into St. Johns really need to be answerable to the community and hopefully to other communities throughout Portland.”

So far, Jones and Bolouri have been extremely cooperative in working with St. Johns residents, Purkey said.

“They have been pretty willing to meet with the community and the community encouraged them through letters and lots of emails,” he said. “We are pretty engaged at this point.”

That only makes sense, Purkey said, because more communication can lead to less conflict between developers and residents.

The Marvel 29 apartments became a “tipping point” that led more citizens to get involved with development planning, he said.

Although plans are not yet finalized, business owners attending the July 7 meeting said the design so far for Bolouri’s project seems to fit into the character of the neighborhood.

The three buildings will each be set back at varying distances from the sidewalk along Lombard Street, Purkey said, although there will still be a long wall along Charleston Avenue.

“It is not perfect but better than Marvel 29 at breaking up the massing,” Purkey said.

The post Businesses, residents taking larger role in how St. Johns grows appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A mixed-use project planned on North Lombard Street is expected to take advantage of a “gateway” location.

Alan Jones, principal of Portland-based Jones Architecture, on Jan. 9 applied to the Portland Bureau of Development Services for early assistance with plans to construct a four-story building with 100 apartments, ground-floor retail space and between 70 and 80 below-grade parking stalls at 8247 N. Lombard St.

Farid Bolouri in August 2013 purchased the approximately 38,000-square-foot lot with plans to demolish the four existing buildings to make way for the new development, Jones said. Bolouri recently completed a smaller, similar project in Sellwood.

“I think (Bolouri) sees a lot of similarities between Sellwood and St. Johns,” Jones said. “The great thing about this site is that it’s really where Lombard changes into a more pedestrian-oriented street. It’s a real gateway into St. Johns.”

The building will have a mix of mostly studios along with one- and two-bedroom apartments, Jones said.

“We haven’t decided the exact matrix of the units,” he said. “I think (Bolouri) is interested in the University of Portland student market, but also wants to offer some larger units.”

The building will likely be three wood-framed levels on a concrete podium, though Jones said that the possibility of all above-ground components being wood has not been ruled out.

“We’d really like to do the whole thing out of wood so the first-floor retail spaces can have the wood characteristics, like ceiling beams,” Jones said. “We’re really trying to be good urban neighbors and look at how we can make the building really fit well into the context of the rest of the St. Johns neighborhood.”

The building will have approximately 17,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

“It’s being designed as flexible space that the developer would like to see as a mixture of two larger restaurant spaces and about a half-dozen smaller retail spaces,” Jones said.

The area largely has single-family residences; however, Jones noted that Bolouri’s proposed 100-unit project is following the new, 165-unit Marvel 29 near the St. Johns bridgehead.

“There’s a great opportunity for growth in St. Johns,” he said. “It’s got a great downtown-like fabric, and I think these projects are going to change the neighborhood quite a bit.”

A pre-application conference is scheduled for Feb. 4. Jones said the team would like to start construction this summer and deliver in summer 2016.

The post Another development is on tap near St. Johns appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.