The 93-unit Vibrant! affordable housing project is being touted as another example of Portland’s penchant for building public-private partnerships.

The 12-story mixed-use tower opened last week on a quarter-block at the northwest corner of Northwest 14th Avenue and Raleigh Street in the Pearl District. A celebration was held for project team members from general contractor Bremik Construction, design firms LRS Architects and Salazar Architect, and nonprofit developer Innovative Housing Inc. (IHI), which will manage the building.

“It’s a really cool example of affordable housing integrated into a vibrant neighborhood,” Portland Housing Bureau Affordable Housing Director Karl Dinkelspiel said Thursday. “It’s an apropos name, for sure.”

The Housing Bureau teamed with Home Forward to procure a developer, and also contributed $11 million of city dollars. Roughly $20 million more in private funding was secured, Dinkelspiel said.

Vibrant! features post-tensioned concrete slabs with just over 104,000 gross square feet of floor space. The building will offer ample community space, a roof deck, an indoor/outdoor play space for children that opens to a second-floor courtyard with play equipment, a large bike room on the second floor, and a ground-floor bike lounge with a washing station. The ground floor will also host a coffee shop.

The city acquired the site from Hoyt Street Properties for just $1.3 million as part of an agreement between the development firm and the city to develop at least 35 percent of the 34 acres owned by the firm in the Pearl District as affordable housing.

IHI was selected as developer through a competitive bidding process. Ground was broken on the project in June 2017.

Because of the acute need for family housing, Vibrant! has 32 three-bedroom units and 31 two-bedroom apartments in addition to 30 one-bedroom units. Forty of those are subsidized and reserved for houseless families. The others are reserved for individuals and families with incomes at 30 percent, 50 percent and 60 percent of the area median income. Preleasing began in November, and rents currently are from $350-$775 for a one-bedroom unit, $422-$932 for a two-bedroom unit, and $487-$1,022 for a three-bedroom unit.

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A Portland affordable housing developer is partnering with a pre-apprenticeship program to bring workforce training to a Northeast Portland project and connect low-income youths and adults to living-wage careers in the building industry.

Innovative Housing Inc. plans to break ground next month on Magnolia 2, a 50-unit project at 415 N.E. Fargo St., at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The project will include a 1,000-square-foot maker space for residents and community members to work on building projects, participate in classes and workshops, and take classes conducted by pre-apprenticeship program Constructing Hope.

The idea for the maker space was sparked, IHI Executive Director Sarah Stevenson said, by a market-rate project in another city that included space for residents to work on projects.

“We thought that people who are in apartments are sometimes constrained by what they can do,” Stevenson said. “They can’t get it all dirty. They can’t make a lot of noise. They don’t have saws and hammers. So we wanted to create a little workshop space for our residents.”

In exploring the possibilities of how to maximize the community benefits of such a space, the nonprofit developers were connected with Constructing Hope after consulting with National Association of Minority Contractors-Oregon Executive Director Nate McCoy, who realizes the potential for the maker space to boost youth and minority participation in the trades.

“Getting the chance to learn things firsthand and see people that look like you on the project that’s being built next door to you just provides a bit more hope and guidance for those who maybe don’t know about this industry,” McCoy said. “It’s a dual effect of potentially helping people get to a point of wealth creation and economic development by having a good, living-wage job, and hopefully going into homeownership so they can free up an affordable unit for the next person or family.”

Constructing Hope provides 10-week pre-apprenticeship training classes geared to provide a pathway to the trades for adults who have faced economic and social barriers to living-wage jobs, as well as a five-week summer camp for teenagers. The maker space at Magnolia 2 will provide much-needed space for teaching hands-on skills as a way of introducing people of all ages to the trades, Constructing Hope Executive Director Pat Daniels said.

“When you think about construction, we can talk about it all day long, but we don’t have a place where you can come and do a project,” she said. “Millennials have to be engaged, and for us to just come and talk, that’s not engaging them enough.”

A lack of shop space for hands-on learning has always been an issue for pre-apprenticeship programs in the area. Daniels believes the maker space can be used to introduce residents and community members to building industry opportunities, and dispel stereotypes about the nature of construction work.

“We made it out to be an ugly job and just for people who weren’t smart enough, when actually you have to be very smart to be in any of the trades,” she said. “Remember, we pulled construction out of the schools a long time ago. So the average person doesn’t know what a carpenter does. They don’t even know what the average wage of a carpenter is.”

Constructing Hope will offer training and outreach to the Northeast Portland community, while NAMC-Oregon will link trainees and community members with its contacts in the contracting community.

“It’s going to take a good five to 10 years for us to see meaningful utilization of more minorities in the industry,” McCoy said. “So to have a maker space that could allow kids unfettered access to these resources and opportunities is really going to be a game-changer, I think.”

Magnolia 2 is the second phase of what will become a 100-unit apartment building. The first 50-unit phase was completed in 2013, and Magnolia 2 will join it to create a single 100-unit structure. It is a family-oriented development, with 17 one-bedroom units, 23 two-bedroom units, and 10 three-bedroom units.

The approximately $16 million project was designed by LRS Architects and will be built by general contractor Bremik Construction, which worked with Steve Malany and the Associated General Contractors Oregon-Columbia Chapter Foundation to secure a $4,600 grant to purchase tools for the maker space.

Magnolia 2 represents the achievement of a long-held goal of IHI, which in addition to housing, provides services intended to keep its residents stable and successful. As a developer that works closely with contractors, IHI has sought to connect its residents with its construction contacts, but has had trouble identifying a meaningful way to do so.

“We’ve talked about it for a long time with different partners and within our own offices, how great it would be to leverage all these construction contacts we have to help all these residents … access higher-paying, skilled work,” Stevenson said. “With the maker space it just all came together, because suddenly we have a space where we can bring the construction partners and the residents together.”

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The saga of the Buck-Prager Building, in Portland’s Alphabet Historic District, continued to drag Monday, as the Historic Landmarks Commission delayed until next month a decision whether to approve plans for a 148-unit affordable housing development.

Following a hearing lasting longer than three hours, the record will be held open for the next seven days to allow additional public testimony. Previously, three design advice meetings took place for the project, which is being developed by Northwest Housing Alternatives on a half-block parcel at 1727 N.W. Hoyt St.

As designed, the project would feature construction of a new five-story building with 100 workforce housing units, a renovation of the existing three-story Buck-Prager Building to provide 18 senior housing units and increase seismic strength, and construction of a four-story addition to the Buck-Prager Building to provide 30 more senior housing units. All 148 apartments would be affordable for people making 60 percent of area median income.

The century-old existing building was at the center of Monday’s discussion.

“Primary to this project is to save the Buck-Prager,” lead designer Michelle Black of Carleton Hart Architecture told the commission. “We really tried hard to leave the exterior in place and bring back items that have been lost over time.”

Earlier design advice reviews brought about a host of changes to the original design in order that the new buildings blend in well with the surrounding neighborhood. But from the beginning a significant portion of the neighborhood has expressed opposition to a project that would be much larger than adjacent single-family homes, some of them also designated as historic resources.

At the same time, Black said, Northwest Portland has long featured the most diverse mix of residential housing in the city, such as five- or six-story apartment buildings amid single-family homes.

“The proximity of tall buildings next to small is really something that is intrinsic to this district,” she said. “It’s found throughout the district.”

Bureau of Development Services staff issued in an Aug. 17 memo a recommendation of conditional approval for the project. Conditions included making both faces of patio doors on the south addition operable, adding fiber cement detailing on north building window recesses and maximizing the number of trees along Irving Street.

Also, city planner Grace Jeffreys noted Monday that non-standard landscaping and irrigation improvements to the right-of-way for the north building still require Portland Bureau of Transportation approval.

Public testimony both for and against the project was ample Monday.

“The last iteration of the proposal that we just walked through is beautiful,” said Madeline Kovacs, the coordinator of Portland for Everyone, which advocates for land use policies that support affordable housing. “The Alphabet District does not call for matching details, and many changes have also been made, as we all just saw.”

Kovacs and others also noted that Portland’s affordable housing crisis makes approval of projects like this imperative.

“The size and scale of the proposed buildings have been a central issue,” said Sarah Stevenson of Innovative Housing Inc., which owns more than 1,400 apartments in Oregon and Washington. “But as a developer, I have to say that the scale of a development is often crucial to its development. Carleton Hart has been very creative while respecting and preserving this historic asset.”

Others were more blunt.

“This body has been blocking developing on this site since 2014, which is repugnant to me,” Southeast Portland resident Alan Kessler said. “There are thousands sleeping on the street at night when there could be homes here. The idea that this body, after three design reviews would say, well, French doors versus sliding doors, the pettiness of that is just incredible to me.”

Project opponents almost universally spoke about the scope and massing and how the complex would come to dominate its immediate surroundings.

“Even if it were to meet criteria to a certain extent,” said Mark Hales, who owns an investment property on Northwest Hoyt Street, “how many six- and seven-story buildings need to be put up in what is now an existing parking lot? What is the overall long-term view of that effect? I think it drastically changes the entire composition of the entire Alphabet District.”

Others warned that the affordable housing component could fly out the window if project finances fail to pencil out in the future.

“Housing affordability, first of all, is not an approval criteria; it’s aspirational,” said Dan Anderson, who lives two blocks away from the project site. “The subsidies required to deliver that outcome are not in place today. Prior applications have seen this declined by the state of Oregon. You’re being sold vaporware. You’re being set up for a bait and switch.”

Commissioners discussed the project briefly; some expressed support and others remained ambiguous.

“While I’d like to see the expression on the north side of the north building, that notch, be a little bit bigger, for me it’s sufficient and I’m willing to put my support behind what’s proposed in terms of the bulk and height,” Vice Chairwoman Kristen Minor said. “That’s also said in recognition that the project is doing a significant good thing for the neighborhood by renovating the Buck-Prager Building. For me, this is going to be a good addition to the neighborhood.”

Chairman Kirk Ranzetta and Commissioner Matthew Roman also expressed support for the proposal, while Commissioner Ernestina Fuenmayor and Commissioner Annie Mahoney remained unconvinced.

“The massing is still pretty big, pretty aggressive,” Fuenmayor said. “But maybe now the south addition looks a little more compatible as a whole. I have a mixed feeling about this.”

The Historic Landmarks Commission will revisit the project Sept. 24. At that time, any new testimony will be reviewed. There will not be any further staff or applicant presentations, however, and the next meeting will largely be confined to deliberation by the commission and potentially a vote.

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Innovative Housing Inc. last week celebrated crews topping out its 12-story affordable housing project at Northwest 14th Avenue and Raleigh Street with the announcement of the building’s name: “Vibrant!” According to Sarah Stevenson, IHI’s executive director, the name was chosen to not only reflect the building’s bright orange exterior, but also embody what it will mean to residents.

“That’s kind of what we hope we are: a vibrant spot for people to come and live their lives,” Stevenson said. “It’ll be pulsating with life when it’s full with 93 families a year from now. We think this will be a great foundation for success for people in all aspects of their lives, and we want to help elevate their resonant voices and help them engage and tell their truths.”

Vibrant! will feature 93 units, ranging in size from studios to three-bedrooms; 40 of those units have been set aside for homeless families. In keeping with input provided by the Pearl District Neighborhood Association, the developers are seeking a local coffee shop to occupy the ground-floor commercial space.

“The neighborhood told us that’s what they’d like to see, so that’s what we’re working on,” Stevenson said.

Crews with Bremik Construction, the project’s general contractor, poured the 105,000-square-foot building’s roof deck earlier this month. Salazar Architect and LRS Architects are the designers of the approximately $30 million project. Completion is slated for early 2019; pre-leasing will begin this fall, and IHI is hoping to have the building filled by next June.

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Crews with Bremik Construction and Van Lom Concrete last week poured the ninth-floor post-tensioned concrete deck for an affordable housing building in the Pearl District.

About 220 cubic yards of concrete were poured on for the building, which is sited on a quarter-block parcel at the northeast corner of Northwest 14^th Avenue and Raleigh Street. When the building is topped out later this spring, it will reach 12 stories in height and contain 93 apartments ranging in size from studios to three-bedroom units.

Bremik Construction is serving as the project’s general contractor and is self-performing the concrete work, while Van Lom Concrete is the concrete finisher. The building was designed by Salazar Architect ˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýLRS Architects for Innovative Housing Inc. The project is slated for completion in early 2019.

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The city of Portland is trying to attract developers to the U.S. Postal Service site by allowing them to build to the sky.

The City Council is expected to later this month approve raising maximum buildable heights in the area to 400 feet north of Northwest Johnson Street and 250 feet south of it.

The council is also poised to raise the floor area ratio (FAR) to a maximum of 10-to-1 with bonuses, with a base of 7-to-1. That’s up from 4-to-1 under the old rules. The higher FARs allow developers to plan much taller buildings.

The 24-acre Broadway Corridor, including the 14-acre Postal Service property, is essentially a blank slate for city officials and developers. Affordable-housing advocates, equity activists and transportation watchdogs all want a say in how this keystone parcel bordering the Pearl District and Old Town Chinatown is built out.

Prosper Portland plans to seek a master developer for the project with a request for qualifications in mid-November that would remain open until mid-January. The developer would serve as a consultant for a year or so of planning.

“Should that partnership work well, they would have exclusive rights to develop the post office site, but not adjacent sites,” said Sarah Harpole, project manager at Prosper Portland.

A member of the Broadway Corridor steering committee told the City Council it’s crucial that the broad rules for building on the property are clarified before a request for qualifications is issued.

“We’re working to get the RFQ finalized so we can get it out to developers,” said Sarah Stevenson, a committee member and executive director of Innovative Housing Inc., a developer of affordable housing. “But it’s critical we have clarity on the heights and the FAR before we can fairly ask a developer to respond to a solicitation. That’s why early implementation of the height and FAR recommendations that have been developed throughout this prior public process are important.”

The City Council did not vote on the agenda item last week. It is tentatively scheduled to reconsider that matter at a Sept. 28 meeting.

At 400 feet, certain blocks of the Broadway Corridor would have height limits comparable to some of the tallest in Portland. It would represent a spike in height next to lower heights permitted in much of Old Town Chinatown and taller heights south of Burnside Street and the West End.

Prosper Portland and a stakeholder advisory committee, along with a long roster of consultants, are evaluating the possibilities for the Postal Service site and the larger Broadway Corridor. Among the issues are whether the property can or should be used as a massive corporate campus, whether the existing postal facility should be preserved and possibly used as office space, and how to incorporate open space.

The Broadway Corridor is projected to absorb 10 percent of Portland’s population growth by 2035, Harpole said.

With greater building heights comes the possibility of increased property tax revenues, jobs and residences.

“The only way to meet our future demand in a sustainable way is to use the density,” said Sam Rodriguez, a member of the stakeholder advisory committee and senior managing director of Mill Creek Residential Trust, a prolific apartment developer. “The more flexibility the better.”

In broad strokes, the city’s , published last year, sketched a future for the area. That plan envisioned 3.8 million square feet of development along with parks, open space and transportation infrastructure.

The plan calls for developing nearly 2.1 million square feet of residential space, including a substantial complement of affordable housing.

“That neighborhood is ripe for mixed-use overall development, and I think housing would be fantastic,” Rodriguez said.

Portland “has had some really good, successful test cases with a mix of affordable-housing buildings and mixed-income buildings,” he said.

Prosper Portland officials also see the property as a good place for jobs as they seek to preserve room for companies to operate amid the ever-present crush of housing needs.

“We’ve long recognized the site as a significant opportunity for employment,” Harpole said.

Plans call for Johnson Street to be extended to the east across the property. It would meet Park Avenue, which would be extended northward into the site along with three additional park blocks.

The Broadway Corridor is large enough to encompass anyone’s hopes and dreams. That’s a problem for officials planning the site – not everyone is going to get what they want out of the property.

“The city wants a lot of things to happen there, and there’s a lot of competing interests,” Rodriguez said. “What will make it really hard is you won’t be able to meet all of those goals, and what are the decisions that need to be made? There’s just a lot of forces pulling on the options, so it’s going to be tough, and there’s going to be some tough decisions that need to be made and not everyone is going to be happy.”

Planning for development is a long process. The Postal Service is not expected to vacate its building for another site near Portland International Airport until late 2018. Prosper Portland also agreed to allow the Postal Service to maintain retail uses at the Northwest Portland location indefinitely.

The city of Portland agreed in May 2016 to buy the Postal Service site for $88 million.

Building out the site will occur in phases. Consultants and committee members have discussed retaining the existing Postal Service building as an interim measure. That would allow for lower rents than would be possible in a newly constructed building.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation, TriMet and Portland Streetcar have also been involved in planning for the site to ensure transportation access.

Prosper Portland intends to guide the Broadway Corridor throughout the process, holding the development contract with the Bureau of Development Services.

“We ultimately are hosting the table and contracting the work,” Harpole said.

The Postal Service site itself will have a master plan that will be subject to a Type III land use review by the Portland Design Commission.

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