A historic, three-story building near the Burnside Bridge‘s east end has a long history. It was constructed in 1912 as the Alco Apartments, joining the trend of offering ground-floor commercial spaces below workforce housing units.

The building’s name later was changed to the Vivian Apartments, and then it eventually closed slightly more than five years ago.

In 2016, the building at 110 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Two years later, it was purchased for $2.3 million by Kristinn Vilbergsson, founder and CEO of KEX Hostel – a business based in Reykjavik, Iceland. Vilbergsson announced his intention to transform the run-down building into the first KEX Hostel in North America. A restaurant, bar and rooftop patio bar also are planned.

Green Light Development is guiding the renovation, which is now in the final stages. In fact, R&H Construction already formally delivered the project; however, some scopes of work were transferred to the owners so distinctive finishes and décor could be added.

Of course, the project’s designer, Hennebery Eddy Architects, first had to address the building’s unreinforced masonry. DCI Engineers contributed to that portion of the work.

“It’s a full-on seismic upgrade,” said Tim Eddy, founding principal of Hennebery Eddy Architects. “The building didn’t have an elevator; it had one stair and we added a second means of egress. The building has a lot of charm, and the existing scale is indicative of many parts of Portland at the turn of the century and well into the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s. So from a historic perspective, it’s an important building.”

Over the past year, crews gutted the building’s interior in order to construct a new concrete core with a pair of elevators. This addition allowed a host of new glulam beams to be extended outward from the core and tied new into structural steel brace framing around the perimeter.

“The elevator core and other shear walls on the exterior and the brace frames establish the lateral system for the building,” Eddy said. “And those are connected into floor diaphragm and then at the roof, and that ties the building together.”

The project has essentially provided a new structure wrapped in a historic shell, said Evan Charpentier, a senior project manager with R&H Construction.

“We built a concrete box that goes all the way from the basement to the roof,” he said. “And there is a ton of timber to create some rigidity, and this gives you the structural core that everything can come off of. And these (steel) braces, perpendicular to one another, give you shear.”

The brace frames, Charpentier explained, sit on a solid concrete shear panel that starts in the basement. This panel was poured onto a massive footing containing a “very elaborate cage of iron,” he said. A rigid, perpendicular moment frame was created, and then repeated throughout the building to create significant rigidity that did not exist previously.

Plainly evident is the refreshment that transformed old apartments into vibrant guest rooms with bathrooms. However, a largely hidden but significant addition is a false ceiling on the ground floor to create roughly four feet of buffer between guest rooms and the bar/restaurant space below.

“It’s a complete acoustic separation between this public space and the rest of the hotel,” Charpentier said.

Because the building is listed on the national register, Eddy noted, its hallways, original entry and exterior features had to be preserved.

“It’s a combination of a contemporary program use and a historic building that really works well together,” he said. “That building is ready for its next 100 years.”

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Bids are now being sought from subcontractors for work on a planned 46-unit apartment building being built by general contractor LMC Construction in the 2700 block of Southeast Belmont Street, on the Buckman neighborhood’s eastern edge.

The five-story structure, designed by Portland firm C2K Architecture for developer Green Light Development, will be solely residential. The scope of work includes demolition of an existing structure, site development and right-of-way improvements. There will also be 13 surface parking stalls.

The ground floor will have four walk-up apartments, long-term bicycle storage and the main entry lobby. Levels two through five will feature a mix of studios, one-bedroom units and two-bedroom units. Finally, the fifth floor will host a communal amenity space for tenants.

LMC Construction is accepting sub-bids through 5 p.m. on Oct. 15 in the following trades: concrete, masonry, metals, woods and plastics and composites, thermal and moisture protection, openings, finishes, specialties, equipment, furnishings, and conveying equipment.

Project plans can be obtained from LMC Construction by calling 503-646-0521, or sending a fax to 503-646-6823. Questions may be directed to LMC Construction Director of Pre-Construction Services Scott Dekker at 503-646-0521 or scottd@lmcconstruction.com.

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One of Portland’s most prominent developers painted a dark picture Thursday of an entire generation of retiring baby boomers with no savings who will rely on shelters or a nomadic lifestyle in RVs as high costs shut them out of the housing market.

Homer Williams, a partner in Williams & Dame Development, has become in recent years a vocal critic of Portland’s homelessness crisis. City officials, business leaders and ordinary Portland residents must do much more to aid the homeless, Williams said, speaking at a Bisnow panel discussion with other developers and real-estate professionals.

“We’re going to see shelters in every neighborhood,” Williams said. “We’re not going to have a choice.”

Williams founded Oregon Harbor of Hope, a nonprofit organization that works to address homelessness. It now offers services such as mobile laundry to homeless camps.

“We have to recognize this is our problem,” Williams said. “This is everybody’s problem. We have to be willing as neighborhoods or businesses. What I tell people is do something or shut up, because it’s going to take doing something, not talking about it.”

City officials and developers may have to reconsider housing types such as single-room units they have traditionally frowned upon, Williams said.

“We’re going to have to redefine what acceptable housing is,” he said. “Sheltered is a better word.”

Williams’ blunt comments struck an odd tone amid a wider discussion of topics such as prevailing capitalization rates and Portland’s inclusionary housing policies. The panel was hosted by Bisnow at The Nines, a downtown luxury hotel.

Despite some overbuilding in the luxury rental market, the city continues to attract capital, panelists said.

“Portland is still on everybody’s horizon,” said Joe Nydahl, a CBRE broker who focuses on multifamily investments. “National firms that don’t have anything here, they’re still looking to get in.”

Nydahl said he recently sold land for future multifamily development. Portland’s inclusionary housing rules, which require multifamily developers to include rent-restricted affordable units or pay a fee, are not scaring off investors, he said.

“We’re still seeing deals start,” he said.

Mark Desbrow, principal of Green Light Development, said his firm has shifted away from multifamily development since Portland’s inclusionary housing rules took effect on Feb. 1, 2017. “I see the multifamily space as extremely competitive and hard to make a buck,” he said. “So we’re trying to innovate.”

Green Light’s latest project is adaptive reuse of a former three-story apartment building near the Burnside bridgehead. The firm is planning an Icelandic hostel and gastropub.

Since inclusionary housing took effect, apartment projects have popped up on Portland’s periphery, but not in close-in areas.

“There’s not going to be much developed in the core without incentives,” Desbrow said.

Desbrow said he’s seeing more projects with 30-80 units and no parking in Portland neighborhoods. Another multifamily developer has pursued that business model, he added.

“Dennis Sackhoff has been really successful keeping his price point down,” Desbrow said. “I think that’s where we’re headed.”

Jeff Ballaine, vice president of Hunt Mortgage Group in Seattle, said he expects to see more services such as day care offered in apartment complexes.

“Maybe the people who are providing the day care service are getting subsidized rent so they can live near where they work,” he said.

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A Portland developer is planning an ambitious overhaul of a century-old apartment building.

Green Light Development is proposing to transform the former Vivian apartment building, at 110 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., via an adaptive reuse project. Plans call for a gastropub on the ground floor and hostel rooms on the second and third floors.

Ground could be broken in late spring or early summer, and the renovated building could open in the second quarter of 2019, Green Light principal Mark Desbrow said.

Desbrow cautioned that the project is at its beginning stages.

“We’re still in the very early stages of conceptualizing and capitalizing this project,” he said.

The hostel is referred to on Green Light’s website as a Kex location. Kex is an upscale hostel in a former biscuit factory in Reykjavik, Iceland; it has a ground-floor gastropub and advertises with lifestyle tags such as “a gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn’t.”

Hennebery Eddy Architects is designing the project, and R&H Construction will serve as general contractor.

“We’re really excited about these two relationships,” Desbrow said.

DCI Engineers will conduct a seismic retrofit and energy-efficiency upgrades.

The three-story, 16,500-square-foot building was built circa 1911. It occupies a corner of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Couch Street. Green Light is pursuing a listing on the National Register of Historic Places for the building.

The proposal calls for outdoor seating, a green roof, refreshment of the exterior with a new main door, an aluminum storefront frame and masonry restoration in places.

The hostel would add to a boom in development at the east end of the Burnside Bridge. Projects such as Yard, Slate, the Fair-Haired Dumbbell and the renovation of the Towne Storage Building have made the area the epicenter of development in Portland.

“We really like the location,” Desbrow said. “It’s really one of the best locations for our use.”

A hostel and a gastropub would be new territory for Green Light. The developer mostly has tackled multifamily projects. Green Light previously completed D Street Village, a mixed-use building with 85 apartments on Southeast Division Street, and Attwell off Main, a 167-unit multifamily building in Tigard that was developed in a partnership with Capstone Partners.

Currently, Green Light has under construction a 119-unit apartment building in Southeast Portland’s Sellwood neighborhood. That project is Green Light’s first large enough to require a construction crane, Desbrow said.

The hospitality industry is growing quickly in Portland. Kex would likely offer a lower price point than other projects in the works, such as Provenance Hotels‘ Woodlark, Graves Hospitality‘s hotel at Southwest 10th Avenue and Alder Street or the 600-room Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center.

“In general, we’re in a real growth period in types of lodging,” said Marcus Hibdon, a spokesman for Travel Portland.

For travelers, hostels occupy a space somewhere between full-service hotels and home rentals via websites such as Airbnb.

“Hostel lodging tends to come in quite a bit less expensive than your traditional hotel room,” Hibdon said. “I would imagine there’s a market for a budget traveler who’s looking for a really good deal on a place to sleep.”

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Green Light Development is in very early stages of planning a 14-home subdivision near Mt. Tabor and two multifamily buildings on Southeast Belmont Street, said managing partner Mark Desbrow.

Desbrow has asked for early planning assistance from the city for a new five-story apartment building with retail, parking and storage at 2731 S.E. Belmont and a five-story building with 36 to 37 units and adjacent parking 4335 S.E. Belmont Street. But it’s too soon to say exactly what will be built, Desbrow said.

“It’s still very early in the process and we don’t know if we’re going to do 15 units or 50,” he said.

Plans are more firm for a 14-home subdivision in the 5200 block of Southeast Belmont Street near the entrance to Mt. Tabor Park, he said.

City approval of the entire subdivision plan is still months away, Desbrow said, but because two of the homes have remnant lot lines and are not technically part of the subdivision, he plans to start construction on them in about a month.

Ethan Beck Homes is a partner in the subdivision project, Desbrow said.

“We’re not sure of the price range, but the housing market is really strong,” he said. “We will have a common area and will build really high-quality, detached-residence certified houses.”

The site of the proposed subdivision is a one-and-a-half-acre parking lot, he said, so no demolition is needed.

“Large properties like this are extremely difficult to find and there are a lot of land use applications and lot of topography (to consider),” Desbrow said.

Early assistance also has been requested from the city for three other proposed multifamily projects. Applicants for the three projects did not return calls requesting more details.

Doug Circosta of Jivanjee Circosta Architecture LLC submitted an early assistance intake for property at 5833 S.W. Macadam Ave. with preliminary plans calling for a two-building, mixed-use residential project with 57 to 60 units, surface-level retail/commercial space and tuck-under parking. The owner is listed as Macadam Apartments LLD.

At 12647 S.E. Stark, a proposed 46-unit apartment with two- to three-story light frame construction and 36 parking spaces is also in early planning stages with the city. The early assistance intake request was made by Jay Woodworth of Lake Oswego, and the owner is listed as John M. Woodworth, also of Lake Oswego.

Another early intake request for 7032 N. Montana Ave. has been submitted by Christopher Schwindt of Portland on behalf of owners David and Christine Berry of Parkdale. Preliminary plans call for a four-story, 21-unit apartment building over a subterranean garage.

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A grand opening was held this week to celebrate completion of a 135-unit apartment project at 2625 E. Burnside St. in Portland. The SERA Architects-designed project was built by Bremik Construction for joint developers Capstone Partners LLC, Green Light Development, and Premium Properties USA.

Burnside 26 contains four stories of studio, 1- and 2-bedroom apartments and a ground-floor retail space over a sub-grade parking garage with 52 parking spaces. The building features an indoor/outdoor rooftop lounge with a kitchen, lounge space, and barbecue, and a ground-floor lobby with computer stations, open office space available to tenants in the evening, a fireplace and a kegerator.

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General contractor KeyWay Corp. is building a pair of mixed-use apartment projects on Southeast Division Street for co-developers Green Light Development and Capstone Partners. Construction of the buildings is the second phase of the D Street Village project, the first phase of which was the renovation of a nearby two-story commercial building. The four-story apartment buildings will include a combined total of 85 apartment units and 48 parking spaces. Work on the $17 million STACK Architecture-designed project is scheduled for completion in July 2014.

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A development team is planning to breathe new life into a vacant retail building and its surrounding neighborhood on Southeast Division Street. And in order to be successful, the group is seeking to differentiate its project from others in the area, as well as address residents’ concerns about traffic congestion.

Green Light Development and hope to break ground this fall on the first phase of a $12 million development project called the around Southeast 31st Avenue and Southeast Division Street.

In the first phase, a former Wild Oats grocery store, approximately 20,000 square feet and vacant since 2006, would be converted into small business offices and retail spaces. In the second phase, two four-story, mixed-use buildings – with a total of 75 apartments – would be constructed. is working on the first phase and is working on the second.

“What we like the idea of is we’re creating spaces in the project that foster community, and I’m not just saying that as a token statement,” said Mark Desbrow, managing partner of Green Light Development, and one of the developers behind the Waverly Commons – another community-centric project, in Northeast Portland. “We’re really trying to have things where there’s synergy between tenants and areas for neighbors or people walking around to kind of casually stop in and hang out without feeling like they need to buy something.”

The redesign calls for creating about 9,000 square feet of second-floor office space for small, neighborhood businesses. Approximately 12,000 square feet on the first floor would accommodate restaurant and retail uses, and feature outdoor patios and indoor communal areas.

Chris Nelson of Capstone Partners said a big challenge for the project team was figuring out a way to reuse a building that has many old, funky architectural features, such as large structural timber beams and a load-bearing wooden floor.

“We initially called it the Franken Building … in an affectionate way,” he said. “I think the easiest thing to do would be to just tear it down and build 50 apartments over new, ground-floor retail. We certainly evaluated that, but the bigger challenge was: How do we embrace what it is and create this wonderful, new, mixed-use building out of a building that, at its face value, has some apparent challenges.”

Another issue is traffic, which seems likely to increase as multifamily projects continue popping up. Nearby, Urban Development Group is planning an 82-unit complex on Southeast 37th Avenue and Division, and is planning a 31-unit development on Southeast 33rd Avenue and Division.

Longtime resident Peter Forrest, or “Pete on the Street” as his neighbors call him, said he has counted at least 10 projects in as many blocks while walking along Division Street. He understands that low vacancy rates and high rents are driving multifamily development, but he’s concerned about potential traffic impacts.

“What I fear is angry drivers – upset drivers that have road rage because they can’t get to where they want to go – zipping down these side streets and taking a left onto Clinton (Street) because they’re exiting downtown and trying to get home and people getting in harm’s way and somebody getting hurt,” he said.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation hopes to allay those fears with a $5.98 million streetscape project set to kick off in August on Southeast Division Street. Plans include increasing visibility of pedestrian crosswalks, converting pro-time lanes into permanent parking, and adding planters and bio-swales.

Dan Anderson, a spokesman for PBOT, said the streetscape project will make the transportation system along Division more effective, but also make the corridor better for businesses and residents.

“The goal isn’t to get people going 40 miles per hour out to Mount Tabor,” he said.

For its part, the Green Light/Capstone development team plans to provide parking behind its future apartment buildings, which tenants of the ex-Wild Oats building will be able to share. During a neighborhood meeting for another developer’s multifamily project, Desbrow said it was clear how important parking – which is not required by zoning regulations – was to residents.

“Also, we think there’s a business argument to be made for it because all of the other new projects don’t have parking, and we want to differentiate ourselves and think we could have a competitive advantage there,” he said.

Desbrow added that D Street Village will also have ample bike parking.

Glenn Lamb, another longtime resident in the Division Street area, said he also is concerned about traffic congestion issues as they relate to development. But he believes planning for greater density is important in the long term.

“If we don’t accommodate higher densities into our city I know it’s going to pop out into our farmland and forestland, which is some of the most productive in the world,” he said. “And I’m hoping that our neighbors can organize in a way that responds to neighborhood livability issues, but does so while welcoming the kind of changes that are crucial to protecting the integrity of our natural resources beyond the city.”

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