Locals call it “The Pit”.  It’s a giant rectangular hole in the heart of downtown Salem.

A 70-year-old marble and granite bank once stood on the southeast corner of Liberty and Chemeketa streets, where a fence partially conceals the rubble left behind nearly nine years after the building was torn down and its 14-foot basement was excavated.

The demolition debris is now mixed with overgrown vegetation and scattered trash, including a twin mattress, a blue recycling bin, and several orange and white city of Salem barricades.

The property has a complicated history, with multiple owners and developers abandoning plans to redevelop the site over the years due to high construction costs and constraints within the downtown historic district.

The current owner, FT LLC, reacquired the property last year and expressed desire to build a surface parking lot for the adjacent building it owns. But that plan is not currently permitted under the city zoning code.

FT LLC has submitted a land use application with the city. It’s the first official redevelopment proposal since the bank building was demolished in 2017. The previous one involved a combination of housing and retail space. Other similar plans were conceptualized but never advanced beyond the pre-application conference phase.

The plight of the property dates to 2001, when Wells Fargo closed its Liberty Street branch not long after merging with First Security Bank.

Officials determined the First Security location at 580 State St. offered more usable space, a larger parking lot and better access for vehicles, so they consolidated the two downtown branches. Wells Fargo Advisors still operates at the State Street location.

Wells Fargo occupied the Liberty location after acquiring First Interstate Bank, formerly First National, in 1996. First National constructed the building in 1947 on the site of a former service station.

The 21,400-square-foot building was designed by renowned Portland architect Pietro Belluschi; its exterior was sheathed with dark granite on the 8-foot base and white marble above.

Eight large cameo carvings by sculptor Frederic Littman, now referred to as relief sculptures, decorated the western marble face and portrayed the industrial and commercial life of the Salem region.

The bank president called the design “an edifice of pleasing architectural beauty.” The Oregon Statesman reported the cost of the building to be $500,000 — equivalent to $7.4 million today.

The interior featured a mezzanine above the rear of the ground floor and the main safe deposit vault in the basement, which extended underneath the sidewalk of Chemeketa Street. The basement also contained an employee cafeteria and mechanical rooms.

Over the course of seven decades, the bank employed countless residents and served the financial needs of generations of customers before Wells Fargo closed the branch and sold the property.

SP Development purchased nearly half a downtown block in 2005, including the bank building at 280 Liberty St. N.E. The deal took more than two years due to environmental concerns about underground fuel tanks at 277 High St. N.E, the former city hall site and parking lot since 1972.

The group, which included the Colson family and former Holiday Retirement Corp. senior managers, supported a plan for mixed-use development but determined that rehabilitation of the bank building would be cost prohibitive and economically unviable. In other words, it would not generate enough profit to justify the expense.

SP Development requested permission from the city in 2008 to demolish the building, which had structural deficiencies and would have required significant seismic and safety upgrades. Their application estimated reusing the existing building would cost between $6.6 million and $9.8 million.

The bank was in the downtown historic district and designated as a historic contributing resource. That meant demolition plans had to be approved by the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission.

Approval was granted in September 2008.

The Statesman Journal archives show various tenants occupied portions of the building while demolition plans languished, including a title company, bead store, mortgage company and pain center.

Nearly eight years later, in 2016, SP Development sold the bank and the parking lot to the east to FT LLC for $1.77 million.

The new owners, associated with Pacific Office Automation, submitted their own plans to demolish the bank building and redevelop the property. Their proposal was approved under three conditions, including the prominent display of the preserved marble relief sculptures on any new building.

It took three days to remove the eight sculptures from the west façade before the bank could be torn down. Each one was 5 feet tall, 6 feet wide, and 6 inches thick.

A conservator cleaned, palletized and covered the sculptures for storage in a Portland-area warehouse, where they remain today.

Demolition of the building was completed in the fall of 2017, creating The Pit as we know it today.

FT LLC never followed through with redevelopment. Once again, the city understood financing to be the biggest obstacle.

Mountain West Investment Corp. stepped up to purchase and develop the site in 2019, proposing to build more than 150 apartments by Salem Center mall as part of a project including two mixed-use buildings with ground-floor retail space.

Local architects were enlisted to draft drawings, and a pre-application conference was held with city officials before Mountain West backed out. A Mountain West representative told the Statesman Journal at the time that the deal fell apart due to high construction costs.

FT LLC eventually found a buyer for The Pit and the parking lot properties.

DD Citizen LLC, associated with Deacon Development, purchased the properties in November 2024. Deacon built the Rivenwood Apartments at the former Nordstrom site downtown.

New ownership translated into new hope for redevelopment of The Pit, but within seven months that was gone, too.

Deacon planned to develop both sites but within seven months had steered away from The Pit, repeating what their predecessors discovered — redevelopment was economically unviable.

Company officials said the site presented infrastructure challenges, including a high water table and stormwater connectivity issues, and additional conditions and costs related to historic overlay requirements.

New construction projects within Salem’s downtown historic district must go through a design review process and meet requirements intended to preserve the character of a designated historic district.

DD Citizen LLC sold The Pit property back to FT LLC in June 2025.

A few months later, Deacon crews broke ground on a $25 million, six-story, mixed-use building on the High Street property. The Citizen Apartments will include 105 units (a mix of studios and one-bedroom and two-bedroom units) and ground-floor commercial space.

City staff welcomed the project’s potential to revitalize an area that lagged other parts of downtown, holding out hope that The Pit will be next.

“Maybe when the apartment complex opens, now that the Forge is redeveloped, and if JCPenney is redeveloped, that might be a catalyst to moving things along in some way,” said Lisa Anderson-Ogilvie, the city’s planning administrator.

The Pit remains an eyesore while progress is made on the neighboring apartment building; completion is slated for spring 2027.

FT LLC has removed trash at the site multiple times and considered removing the demolition debris, but the city told the company that archaeologists would need to be involved. The debris now includes large chunks of granite and new layers of trash.

Local developers agree that constructing a mixed-use building at the site — something the city has hoped for since the bank was demolished — would be feasible but costly.

FT LLC submitted a land use application in January, proposing a surface parking lot exclusively for the building to the south. Pacific Office Automation occupies much of the ground floor, but the remainder of the building is apparently vacant. Exterior signs and interior fixtures and furniture for a taco restaurant remain even though it closed more than a year ago.

The preliminary site plan shows 26 parking spaces in the lot, with entry from Chemeketa Street through the alley east of the property.

The city reviewed the application for completeness in February, outlining additional information needed to address several items. One requires a list of all members of the company involved with the land use application request to identify any potential conflicts of interest.

BRAND Land Use is listed as the applicant and owner Britany Randall as the agent for FT LLC. Randall responded to a Statesman Journal inquiry but declined to answer questions on behalf of the property owner.

The city’s completeness review noted that constructing a surface parking lot would require a property line adjustment to consolidate the property with the abutting one to the south.

“As discussed at the pre-application conference, a stand-alone surface parking lot on a separate lot is only allowed as Commercial Parking … where such parking is available to the public and not exclusively accessory to a specific use or development,” the review stated.

The review also noted the need to apply for a variance because a surface parking lot would deviate from one of the conditions of the 2017 historic demolition approval for the bank building. An applicant for proposed development is required to use the eight Littman relief panels on the exterior of a new building.

City planners have since met with FT LLC representatives to discuss different options, including a parking garage with public access.

Parking lots, in general, are considered a detriment to the vibrancy of any downtown area, not only diminishing the charm necessary to attract visitors but reducing tax revenue.

Liam Bean, land use chair for the Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization, said CANDO “strongly opposes the construction of new surface parking lots without addition of retail space or dwelling units in downtown Salem.”

Downtown Salem has other voids to fill besides The Pit, including Block 50 to the west where the former Union Gospel Mission once stood.

The city began acquiring buildings on the block in 2020, including the UGM, ABC Music and Saffron Building Supply, with the intention of using the properties to help revitalize the downtown core. Its vision for the site is housing or offices with a mix of services on the ground floor, including restaurants, coffee shops, brewpubs, a grocery store or other retail.

Demolition of Block 50 began in the winter of 2022, leaving its own mini hole in the ground near the corner of Commercial and Chemeketa.

But there is only one Pit.

Developers and city planners agree that timing is everything. For The Pit, property conditions, the market and economy, and construction prices have yet to align in the 25 years since the bank closed.

The good news is that lessons have been learned through the struggle to redevelop the property.

The city’s historic code has undergone a major overhaul, more closely tying new construction to a demolition permit. The Holman Hotel on the former Marion Car Park property is a good example. The city had a proposed use to consider when reviewing the proposed demolition of the car park.

The Pit’s fate likely won’t be known for months.

FT LLC has 180 days from the date of submission to provide information and materials requested by the city. The application will expire July 22 if not deemed complete prior to that.

The land use application process can be lengthy. Decisions are complex and never made lightly due to the impact they can have on the community for generations.

“Once something is built, it will be there for a very long time,” Anderson-Ogilvie said. “Sometimes, I think it’s better to wait for a use more consistent with our vision for downtown.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Statesman Journal and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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SAVANNAH, Ga. — A federal government building in downtown Savannah is officially slated for demolition as part of the U.S. General Services Administration’s push to reduce the federal real estate portfolio.

The Juliette Gordon Low Building A at 120 Barnard St., on Telfair Square’s northeastern trust lot, is slated for demolition starting May 25. GSA has cited multiple recurring maintenance issues and the lack of a foreseeable federal tenant as reasons for the demolition.

“After an evaluation of the building’s current condition and its long-term viability for federal use, GSA has concluded the building is not suitable for continued use due to significant deferred maintenance requirements,” a GSA spokesperson stated.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson announced the news at a press conference, adding that GSA’s decision requires no permissions or permitting from the city of Savannah. Juliette Gordon Low Building A is not a contributing structure within Savannah’s Downtown Historic District. Contributing resources are buildings or sites that add to architectural or historic value that makes a district significant.

Demolition is expected to take three months, and GSA has plans to restore the site with grass and landscaping, according to a GSA memo shared with the city of Savannah and obtained by the Savannah Morning News. GSA also plans to extend security fencing from the nearby Tomochichi Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse as well as install exterior lighting and security cameras at the site, according to the memo.

Multiple traffic impacts are anticipated during demolition, including full closure of State Street between Whitaker Street and Barnard Street for two to four weeks, the memo states.

“We recognize we may not be able to control what happens, but we can make sure that the public knows what we know,” Johnson said.

The building is currently unoccupied by any federal services. Recently, it has been used as construction offices during a renovation of the Tomochichi complex, the GSA spokesperson stated. Specific deferred maintenance issues at Juliette Gordon Low Building A include recurring roof leaks, a nonfunctional elevator, plumbing problems, and an aged HVAC system with limited function, according to GSA.

The Trump administration has sought to “right-size” the federal government’s real estate portfolio. The effort was launched in April 2025 via an executive order aimed at allowing agencies to assess office space based on cost-effectiveness and “mission suitability,” according to a White House fact sheet.

GSA manages roughly 363 million square feet of space across 8,397 buildings, including courthouses and post offices in addition to office buildings, according to GSA’s website. The agency stated in a Jan. 20 press release that it has disposed of 90 properties and reduced its portfolio by 3 million square feet.

Juliette Gordon Low Building A is the first known planned demolition in Savannah during Trump’s second administration.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Savannah Morning News and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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Portland City Council will vote Nov. 9 whether to approve proposed South Portland Historic District design guidelines. They would update the historic resource review approval criteria that apply to alterations and new construction in the district and repeal the 42-year-old Lair Hill Conservation District design guidelines.

The council discussed the draft guidelines in a meeting on Wednesday.

In 1977, Portland City Council established the Lair Hill Conservation District. In 1998, a National Register of Historic Places nomination was approved by the National Park Service, expanding the boundaries of the conservation district and establishing the South Portland Historic District.

The Portland Historic Landmarks Commission adopted design guidelines for the Lair Hill Conservation District in 1980. While the guidelines are still used as historic resource review approval criteria, they apply only to the geography of the former conservation district, do not represent modern best practices for city design guidelines, and lack context and criteria related to the district’s multiethnic cultural significance, a city staff report states.

The South Portland Historic District Design Guidelines Project was initiated in 2019 after repeated requests from the South Portland Neighborhood Association in the years following establishment of the historic district. Similar requests were made by the Historic Landmarks Commission and Bureau of Development Services staffers who encounter implementation challenges when applying the 1980 conservation district design guidelines.

In 2019, the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability appointed a nine-member Community Advisory Group comprised of area residents, students, businesspeople, and historic preservation professionals to guide development of the design guidelines. Project staff released the draft design guidelines this past June.

The Historic Landmarks Commission recommends Portland City Council approve the draft guidelines.

Though the South Portland Historic District in the past was a multiethnic area inhabited by working-class people, that history is not addressed in existing guidelines, city planner and BPS resources manager Brandon Spencer-Hartle said. However, the draft guidelines include a background section detailing the area’s social and cultural history.

The draft guidelines include opportunity for adaptive reuse of buildings and allow for larger buildings in some cases. Flexibility would be given when projects include components such as affordable housing.

The draft guidelines involve building typologies, district patterns, site planning, porches and entries, alterations or additions to buildings built during the period of significance, new building heights and more. Observance of the guidelines would be mandatory, Spencer-Hartle said.

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The project team behind a proposal for a mixed-use tower in Portland’s inner eastside will return to the drawing board after the Historic Landmarks Commission, in a design advice hearing held Monday, recommended changes to the building’s massing, materials and height.

Members of the Seattle-based team, which includes developer Unico Properties and architect Perkins+Will, presented plans for a 12-story building on the southern portion of a block bounded by Southeast Grand and Sixth avenues and Morrison and Belmont streets. The block’s northern portion is occupied by the Weatherly Building – a 12-story office tower completed in 1928 and a contributing structure in the East Portland Grand Avenue Historic District.

Two massing schemes were presented for the development. Both include a 12-story office building with ground-floor retail space, three levels of below-grade parking and a mid-block woonerf connecting Southeast Grand and Sixth avenues.

The first scheme would feature the mass of the office tower at the southeast corner of the site, with a two-story base on the western and southern portions of the block wrapping around an existing two-story commercial building on the block’s southwest corner. The second scheme assumes that the existing building’s footprint will be incorporated, in which case the proposed tower would extend the full width of the southern portion of the block.

The difference in the two schemes hinges on whether the developer is able to add the existing building’s property to the developable parcel.

“We’re interested in that site. We don’t own it currently, so it really comes down to our ability to acquire it, and we’re in efforts to do that right now, but haven’t done so,” explained Brett Phillips, a vice president with Unico, when questioned about the property.

Commissioners and Bureau of Development Services staffers took issue with the modern materials proposed for the building, which include a prominent glass curtainwall and metal paneling. The transparent glazing would expose the building’s interior, which would contain cross-laminated timber framing and concrete cores. Commissioners agreed that the building ought to incorporate the masonry and punched openings prominent among buildings in the district, and that a glass box would neither meet district design guidelines nor fit within the context of the area.

“I don’t see any relationship between this building and the one next door,” Commissioner Ernestina Fuenmayor said. “They don’t seem to be connecting yet.”

Also at issue was the massing of both proposed design schemes, neither of which would defer enough to the adjacent Weatherly Building. Commissioner Matthew Roman argued that both proposed schemes are overwhelming in context with the 91-year-old structure.

“I’m not against a larger building or a counterpoint tower of some kind, but to me neither of the proposals … defer to the Weatherly Building,” he said. “It’s got to do more to be deferential to what is arguably one of the more important buildings of the era it represents.”

Commissioner Andrew Smith agreed, stating that one solution could be to put a four- or five-story mass on the property’s west side, bulking up the base while lowering the structure’s overall height.

“If it’s this tall, it can’t be this tall all the way out to Grand, because I think that really does kind of obliterate the presence of the Weatherly Building that you get from anywhere within the district,” he said. “It feels like more of a big brother compared to the Weatherly than it probably should.”

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A pre-application conference has been scheduled with Portland’s Bureau of Development Services to discuss a proposed 12-story office tower that would be built in the city’s inner east side.

The site of the proposed development is a block bounded by Southeast Morrison and Belmont streets and Grand and Sixth avenues. A northern portion of the block is home to the Weatherly Building, a 12-story, 64,000 square foot office building built in 1928 by ice cream baron George Warren Weatherly. It was one of the first high-rise developments on the east bank of the Willamette River and is part of a growing Portland portfolio for Seattle-based owner and developer Unico Properties, which purchased the site last August for $20 million.

The applicants are Peter Meijer Architect and Unico Properties, which last month jointly applied for a pre-application conference to discuss seismic upgrades to the Weatherly Building. The following week, the Seattle office of Chicago-based architecture firm Perkins+Will applied for design advice for the new twelve-story building.

Brian Pearce, Unico Properties’ senior vice president of real estate services, declined to divulge project details.

“It’s too premature in our planning stages to define any plans for the Weatherly at this time,” Pearce said via email. “We will share our vision for the property once we have determined our plan.”

Kate Kearney, a spokesperson for Peter Meijer Architect, also said the firm could not discuss the project at this time.

A produced by Perkins+Will depicts the new office tower occupying the entire southern portion of the block, which currently includes surface parking and a two-story commercial structure built in 1905 and occupied by a sports bar and Bolliger & Sons Insurance, the building’s owner.

Because the block is within the East Portland/Grand Avenue Historic District, the entire development will undergo a Type III historic resource review and will be reviewed by the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission. The commission is chaired by Kristen Minor, an associate with Peter Meijer Architect.

The pre-application conference is set for 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 19 at BDS offices on Southwest Fourth Avenue. It is meant to allow discussion of seismic upgrades to the Weatherly Building and construction of the new 12-story office tower, which would be approximately 153 feet tall and would contain roughly 198,000 square feet of floor area. Plans also call for a 20-foot wide pedestrian connection running east to west between the new building and the Weatherly Building.

The new building would have structured parking and on-site loading accessed from Southeast Sixth Avenue.

The proposed development will also appear before the Historic Landmarks Commission for design advice, for which a date has not yet been scheduled.

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Portland’s inclusionary housing rules have been in effect for nearly a year and the impacts are beginning to appear fully around the city – including historic districts.

The rules state that any project including 20 or more residential units must designate a portion of them as affordable, or pay a fee in lieu. Such projects must have at least 20 percent of units affordable to people making 80 percent of the median family income or 10 percent of units affordable to people making 60 percent of the median family income.

Many developers rushed to submit projects before Feb. 1, 2017, when the rules took effect. The submission rate of proposals has since dwindled.

One of the biggest issues is that designating a certain number of units to rent below market rate dramatically changes the financial dynamics. That impact can be especially profound within historic districts, where height and design guidelines are especially stringent.

“My understanding is that there has not been a land use review for a project that would trigger the inclusionary zoning rules,” said Brandon Spencer-Hartle, historic resources program manager for the city of Portland.

One team did come before the Historic Landmarks Commission in December seeking advice on a project that would trigger the inclusionary housing requirement: the Omni tower. As proposed, it would sit on the corner of Northwest Fifth Avenue and Glisan Street. The design presented to landmarks commissioners called for 13 stories. At approximately 135 feet tall, it would be significantly shorter than the 350-foot height maximum allowed within the district. However, during the hearing, landmarks commissioners said the height would be too tall given the context of the district.

“The building’s owner does not believe that a smaller building is financially feasible given the city’s current inclusionary housing rules,” Ankrom Moisan Architects designer Paul Jeffreys told the commission during the hearing.

The problem for the project is that the Historic Landmarks Commission is charged with ensuring districts’ character and context are maintained. That can often mean that while zoning rules may allow for a taller maximum height, it may not be found appropriate within a particular district.

“I don’t like that process, personally,” Jeffreys said. “The inclusionary zoning is a problem for every area. Historic districts carry a bit more risk. We are hearing a lot of area developers having problems all over the city.”

Another hurdle for the Omni tower is that it is proposed for an area that already has a significant amount of affordable housing. The number of existing affordable units in a particular area isn’t factored into inclusionary housing requirements.

“This district has stagnated,” Jeffreys said. “People are risk averse. We need market-rate apartments in this neighborhood.”

While landmarks commissioners were sympathetic to the developer’s dilemma, financial viability is outside of the commission’s purview.

During the Dec. 4 advice hearing, some landmarks commissioners wondered if the developer would be better off going through the review process with the intention of appealing a denial to the City Council.

“The City Council’s ear is tuned a little different,” Commissioner Matthew Roman said during the hearing. “They approach it a little different.”

However, that option has drawbacks.

“It’s more costly and we don’t want to do that,” Jeffreys said.

The overall problem for project teams is incorporating enough floors into buildings on small sites to accommodate the minimum number of affordable units and still achieve financial viability.

“My view (of) the quota is that it is too high,” Jeffreys said. “It puts too much of a burden on the project and the other options (taking off floors) are not financially helpful.”

Even developers whose overall goal is to provide affordable housing can find historic districts challenging to build in. A development at 1727 N.W. Hoyt St. aiming to provide 165 units for seniors and others making 60 percent of the area median income. But the proposal for a six-story building in the Alphabet Historic District drew a cool reception from landmarks commissioners.

“We are not like market-rate apartments where we can increase our rents to be able to cover the costs of the construction we need to do,” said Stephen McMurtrey, director of housing development for project developer Northwest Housing Alternatives. “We need the amount of units proposed to deliver much-needed affordable housing to an area of the city.”

While the city is looking at the issues caused by the inclusionary housing rules, one issue that was not considered was exempting historic districts.

“The intent after passage was to apply it broadly,” said Tyler Bump, senior economic planner for the city. “One unintended consequence was if we don’t have requirements (in historic districts), it could have motivated investment into those districts. The requirements also had to meet the state law.”

Spencer-Hartle pointed out that floor area ratio bonuses and tax incentives can help offset the costs associated with the requirements. Also, the city will examine options for keeping projects financially viable while the goal of increasing affordable housing is achieved, he added.

“The height limit is in front of council,” he said. “There are some real decisions to be made.”

A mixed-use project at the corner of Southwest Third Avenue and Ash Street was able to successfully use bonus floor area ratio and tax incentives to offset costs incurred by adding affordable units, prior to the new inclusionary rules taking effect, Spencer-Hartle added.

The city is aware of the struggles that area developers are experiencing, Bump said.

“We are sensitive to the private sector,” he said. “(The inclusionary housing policy) has been in effect for 10 months now. We are trying to find out how this works. We have ongoing conversations with area builders.”

One of the goals of the inclusionary housing policy is to promote a diversity of housing types throughout the city – including historic districts.

“We want to help these districts,” Spencer-Hartle said. “The question is: How do we get there?”

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The latest stage in the journey of the Eric Ladd Cast-Iron Collection might soon conclude.

Preservationists are hopeful that new design guidelines for the Skidmore/Old Town Historic District will encourage reuse of these artifacts, now stacked like cordwood in an open-air lot under an overpass of Interstate 5.

The 110 or so innocuous-looking columns and grates, bearing the deleterious effects of corrosion and relocation, have been owned by the city (as the Portland Development Commission) since 2006. At present, it’s unclear who exactly wants to use them, but advocates are optimistic they’ll be part of the building boom moving forward.

Architects and developers don’t always go into business to preserve the past, and it’s thought by some that it’s telling there’s been so little interest so far.

A ‘wonderful moment’

Over the years, William A. “Bill” Hawkins Jr. moved from discouragement to acceptance that the Eric Ladd collection would never be fully utilized. But lately, he’s “hopeful.”

“I’ve had this wonderful moment in the last month,” said the architect and historian.

Hawkins is regarded as the cast-iron authority in Portland. His book, “The Grand Era of Cast-Iron Architecture in Portland,” documents the role the one-time innovative building style played in shaping modern architecture, as well as the Rose City.

Cast iron was a national movement during the latter half the 19th century. Common to Italianate architecture, it was a new structural way to build using large, prefabricated, often ornate, iron pieces affixed to building fronts. They communicated owners’ wealth and status, and were cheaper to build and install than the stone masonry of the day. The style became the norm in Portland starting in the 1860s, when the area’s first iron foundries were established.

Coincidentally, that was also when much of old Portland was built. So instead of a cast-iron building here and there, as in previously-established urban areas like New York City and Paris, there was a whole section of Portland emblematic of the cast-iron aesthetic.

But time moves fast, and other voguish building trends came and went. The cast-iron came down nearly as fast as it went up. Fires ravished the growing city, and the heart of commerce shifted away from the waterfront. Later, in the 1950s, a man named Eric Ladd, fascinated with Portland’s past, worked to set aside and salvage cast-iron elements from approximately 12 demolished storefronts.

His collection was first stored at the Jacob Kamm House before being relocated to a farm along the Sandy River, where it sat for decades. The PDC purchased the pieces in 2006, but an effort to streamline design guidelines to encourage reuse of the artifacts was stalled when the discussion turned to other matters, notably zoning and building height. As staff and committee membership turned over, hope held by preservationists including Hawkins faded. Until this month.

A mixed-use project planned for Pine Street and Oak Street was at first rejected by the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission because of a design “unsympathetic” to surrounding architecture. But after returning from the drawing board with plans calling for cast iron, and other historically-appropriate considerations, the project team gained the commission’s support.

Unlike the previous guidelines, the new ones are concerned more with the “cast iron” than the “Italianate,” so new buildings look less like they’re mimicking a historical style. A companion resolution to the guidelines pressed city bureaus to make “reasonable efforts” to use the cast-iron elements in development and renovation efforts.

Another project offering hope for cast iron is the future home of Ankrom Moisan Architects. Though cast iron won’t be incorporated in the new building, the firm will display artifacts from the Eric Ladd Collection in a grove of freestanding elements along the building’s Naito Parkway frontage.

“We wanted to ensure the story of cast iron is told in our development,” Executive Vice President Murray Jenkins said.

Most of the interest in using the Ladd pieces in recent years has come from developers who have sought to use them as decorative art pieces and not as building exteriors or entryways, said Val Ballestrem, educational director at the Architectural Heritage Center.

As for why the Ladd iron is in limbo, Ballestrem has several theories. First, modern architects “can’t seem to fathom putting this old material on a new building.”

“I think that would be the ultimate statement of recycling and reuse – something that Portland used to be very proud of, but now I’m not so sure,” he said.

Second, the National Park Service, which oversees the Skidmore/Old Town Historic District, traditionally doesn’t like buildings that are reconstructed.

Lots of parking

No doubt, the Skidmore/Old Town Historic District has a different feel than the rest of the Central City, and part of it has to do with the parking lots. Portland effectively banned surface parking in the Central City in its 1972 Downtown Plan, though existing ones were grandfathered in. Today there are more than a dozen surface parking lots in the 17-block district, and most are owned by the Goodman family.

The rule discouraging parking lots led to an unintended consequence – as parking lots are superseded, remaining ones become more valuable.

Parking is now such a valuable commodity in downtown that observers believe a developer can achieve more profits with a parking lot, especially where building heights are limited to 75 feet.

“The economics are such that if you have a choice between running a parking lot and building a 75-foot building, you run a parking lot,” developer John Russell said. “It’s just bad public policy.”

Russell, owner of the Hallock-McMillan Building, has no love lost for parking lots.

“They’re about the worst neighbor you can have,” he said. “(They’re) dead. There’s no pedestrian delight about walking past a parking lot.”

But Hawkins and others think the status quo might change as land values keep rising. It’s thought that new construction could finally be more productive use of Old Town property. (The Goodmans recently unveiled expansive plans to redevelop a number of their properties.)

To renovate the Hallock-McMillan Building at Southwest Naito Parkway and Oak Street, Russell had cast-iron pieces forged – a painstaking six-month process. The building, designed by Absalom Hallock, among the first architects in Portland, was one of the first forays into cast-iron architecture in the city. Russell said he purchased it without understanding its significance in Portland architectural history.

Despite the hope surrounding new uses for cast iron, the state could do a better job incentivizing adaptive reuse of building materials, said Peggy Moretti of Restore Oregon.

Among the lessons of the cast-iron revival in Portland is the importance of effective urban planning, she said.

“First of all, don’t demolish something unless you have a plan for what to replace it with,” she said. “There were a lot of buildings that were torn down and just became empty lots. That was just awful. It just sucked the life right out of the district. Some of the ideas that we had about livable communities just didn’t exist back then. You know, we wouldn’t do that today.”

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