Two adjacent buildings in downtown Portland are on track to receive changes to accommodate the James Beard Public Market, which will hold 40 small businesses.

The Historic Landmarks Commission got its first look Monday at a proposal to make exterior alterations to the Selling Building, at 610 S.W. Alder St., and the building at 622 S.W. Alder St.

The design team includes the San Francisco office of BCV Architecture + Interiors (lead architect and architect of record) and COLAB Architecture + Urban Design (local architect). Other project team members include Grummel Engineering LLC, Humber Design Group, and Hoffman Construction.

The project is valued at $2 million, according to Portland Permitting & Development.

The Selling Building’s storefronts and granite cladding on the bottom two floors would be removed. New storefronts would be constructed with dark granite bases and pilasters, embossed metal cladding, back-painted glass sign bands, and awnings at the ground level. New wood-framed windows and terra-cotta cladding would be installed at the second level.

Similar alterations are proposed across the whole façade of the 622 Alder building. Modifications to sign code standards may be requested, along with a modification to the bird-friendly glazing standard.

An entry at the corner of Alder Street and Sixth Avenue would be maintained but new ones to the market as well as one to a restaurant would be created, said Hans Baldauf, founding principal of BCV Architecture + Interiors.

The ground floor of the 115-year-old Selling Building has been renovated twice – once in 1930 and again in 1937, Baldauf said.

“Our approach on this is to try to restore the Selling Building as having its traditional base, while at the same time acknowledging its history through time,” he said.

The 1930s-era art deco elevation of the storefronts is a more appropriate touchstone for the ground-level commercial space, Baldauf said. City staff support the proposal to restore the glazed terra-cotta cladding and three-part wood windows on the second floor. The team was looking into potentially using fiber-reinforced concrete because it is more affordable. During the meeting, the commissioners voiced support for terra-cotta if possible. The commissioners also asked to see more of a connection between the two buildings.

As proposed, building signage would be larger than typically approved for a retail project; however, since the market is expected to be a major public attraction, city staff believe the signage would be appropriate and consistent with the style and period of significance for the Selling Building, according to a Portland Permitting & Development staff report.

The awnings shown on the drawings would not be deep enough to provide useful cover from rain or sun for pedestrians passing by or visiting the market site, the staff report states. Deeper awnings (at least four feet) should be provided, and awnings or canopies should be provided at the main entrances to the market, according to staff.

The overall proposed concept for the redevelopment of the 622 Alder building is supportable, as it has no existing historic character, according to staff. For the vertical metal bays at either side, rather than extending embossed metal panels from the ground to the parapet, staff suggest incorporating glazing and dividing these bays to be more consistent with the adjacent storefronts in the center of the façade.

A mural is proposed for the Selling Building, adjacent to the roof deck on the 622 Alder building. Staff have recommended that the applicants pursue the public art approval process with the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

The Selling Building will require a type 3 historic resource review from the Historic Landmarks Commission. The 622 Alder building will require a type 2 design review.

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The long-awaited redevelopment of Northeast Sandy Boulevard took a major step forward on Thursday.

The Portland Design Commission voted 5-0 to approve Security Properties‘ plans to transform a former PepsiCo bottling plant off of Sandy Boulevard. Those plans call for turning the 4.7-acre superblock into a dense collection of mixed-use space that leans heavily residential.

The developer is considering building anywhere from 485 to 1,297 housing units, said Dorothy Faris, a principal with Seattle design firm Mithun. That would include 39 to 195 affordable units, depending on affordability level and how many units are built overall.

“It’s a dense project; let’s not kid ourselves,” Commissioner Sam Rodriguez said. “I think that’s what we’re looking for as a city.”

Projects such as The Zipper from Guerrilla Development now appear to have presaged the gentrification of the Northeast Portland corridor, which formerly was lined with auto repair shops and dealerships.

The planned development is the first to receive approval under the city’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan rules for major sites. In exchange for bonus heights of up to 120 feet, the developer agreed to provide affordable housing and set aside major portions of the superblock for open space.

Security Properties executives said they plan to preserve the existing Pepsi Pavilion, which was built in 1962. A group of architects had lobbied for its preservation.

The pavilion will likely have a retail tenant, said John Marasco, Security Properties’ chief development officer. One possibility being discussed is the proposed James Beard Public Market, which has been searching for a home in Portland for a few years.

“We would love to resurrect those conversations,” Marasco said.

James Beard Public Market Executive Director Fred Granum, in an interview with the 91��Ƶ, said he has had no discussions to date regarding the Pepsi Blocks site.

The Pepsi Blocks encompasses five buildable parcels and the existing pavilion building. The tallest buildings are planned alongside Interstate 84, with heights stepping down to Sandy Boulevard.

Open space will weave throughout the development. Security Properties won permission to devote only 12.13 percent of the development to publicly accessible open space; the city’s standard is 15 percent. Open space will be provided by an 8,648-square-foot plaza, a 13,673-square-foot park, a 2,135-square-foot park, a pedestrian path and a woonerf-style street that will extend Pacific Street through the development.

Commissioner Zari Santner praised the project team’s “very thoughtful organization of public spaces.”

“They work well and really will contribute to the vibrancy of this development,” she said.

Santner expressed some concern that the building architecture could be too uniformly boxy.

“The massing is perfect; it’s fine,” she said. “But variety is lacking.”

Many of the buildings will have ground-floor retail space, particularly facing the woonerf. Parking will be provided in underground garages; no surface parking is proposed.

Commissioners attached conditions of approval relating to phasing. Certain building permits will be tied to simultaneous construction of the public spaces. Any change in the project’s phasing would require review by Bureau of Development Services staff.

Development will begin along Sandy Boulevard in the property’s southeast corner and move in a counterclockwise direction. The tallest residential buildings may have to wait for market conditions to improve, the developers said.

Thursday’s approval did not cover individual building designs; they will undergo separate review hearings. The project team will move forward with further design work immediately, Marasco said.

The Pepsi Blocks should serve as a model for future planned development sites, design commissioners said.

“This proposal establishes a really high bar for the master plan areas identified by the 2035 plan,” Chairwoman Julie Livingston said. “It goes further than that – it establishes a new high bar for superblock development. It’s really well done.”

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Backers of the James Beard Public Market are focusing on a site on the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry campus after moving on from plans to build at the western base of the Morrison Bridge.

The market has been invited to participate in OMSI’s master plan for the land, Executive Director Fred Granum said Friday.

“We are participating in that and have every expectation that we’ll be included in that if all goes as we expect,” Granum said. “We are talking to some other sites in the Innovation Quadrant just to make sure we’re getting the very best site. But right now our focus is with the master planning that OMSI has organized.”

Earlier this summer, the James Beard Public Market board voted to abandon a proposed site at the west end of the Morrison Bridge after years of designing around the difficult parcel. The board’s move was first Thursday by local architectural blogger Brian Libby.

Other possible sites include the South Waterfront’s Zidell Yards, or even Centennial Mills, a river plot owned by the Portland Development Commission that the agency has struggled to redevelop.

The Public Market board had engaged the well-respected Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta on the project. Snohetta is also at work on OMSI’s master plan for the 17-acre property in southeast Portland.

“Snohetta’s a great firm,” Granum said.

Issues with the Morrison Bridge site had “nothing to do with the architects,” Granum said.

If the OMSI location works out, the market would serve residents and visitors of the close-in Eastside. That part of town has seen an explosion of growth in creative office tenants, with tech firms such as Simple putting down roots.

Granum said the timeline for the Public Market envisions breaking ground in 2019 and opening in 2020. The market would focus on fresh-food vendors plying Oregon-grown and harvested foods.

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Perhaps it was kismet that as we lost food visionary Ron Paul this past December, the Washington Post ranked Portland as America’s best food city. Paul did, after all, play a leading role in the elevation of the city’s food scene and so much more.

Paul, who died at 65 from complications tied to cancer, was a respected restaurateur who owned Ron Paul Catering & Charcuterie. He also was a well-known proponent of using local foods.

“When he opened the Charcuterie he started a whole food movement in Portland,” said Toni Berres-Paul, his wife of 34 years. “I think Ron was one of the pioneers of that. He was way ahead of his time.”

Paul worked for more than a decade to establish the James Beard Public Market, which will be built at the Morrison Bridge‘s west end. Completion is scheduled for 2018. Initial plans call for the 80,000-square-foot market to feature more than 150 food vendor stalls, a mezzanine level with a learning kitchen and event venue, a rooftop terrace, below-grade parking, and both indoor and outdoor seating and gathering spaces.

Berres-Paul, a legal writing professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, said her husband’s travels inspired him to create the market.

“From his experiences in markets all around the world, he saw that markets are an excellent place for community and for people to get together and enjoy wonderful foods,” she said.

“He was so much a visionary,” Fred Granum, who succeeded Paul as the market’s executive director, told the 91��Ƶ shortly after Paul’s passing. “He brought his background as a chef to work for his community and moved into a successful career as a public servant. His loss saddens us all. He will be sorely missed.”
In addition to his career as a restaurateur, Paul served as chief of staff for Charlie Hales when the mayor was a city commissioner from 1999 to 2002. Berres-Paul said Paul’s public service was important to him.

“He always said he went from retail to retail politics. Those three years in government – that’s when the whole market idea originated and it’s a place where you can start to get things done,” she said.

Paul was the father of three children, which Berres-Paul said he considered his most important accomplishment.

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The next step in building the long-awaited James Beard Public Market might involve removing a vestige of Harbor Drive.

The on-ramp and off-ramp at the Morrison Bridge‘s west end would be altered under preliminary plans by the project team, which includes MMDC Company. The south on-ramp would be connected to Southwest Morrison Street. The north off-ramp, connecting to Naito Parkway, would instead route to a traffic signal at Southwest Stark Street, where vehicles would turn to connect to Naito.

Though initial conceptual plans have received approval from the market’s board of directors, how the roads are tied off will affect final designs, James Beard Public Market Executive Director Fred Granum said.

“I want to underscore the ‘preliminary’ aspect of the plans,” he said. “Internal conversations are still being had.”

The market group is speaking with business stakeholders before approaching government officials about the potential traffic changes. Central Eastside Industrial District business interests have expressed concerns over potential impacts on freight mobility – specifically, the stopping or slowing of trucks bound for Interstate 5.

Calls made to the Central Eastside Industrial Council were not returned by press time.

“There doesn’t seem to be much resistance to removing the south one,” MMDC principal Dan Petrusich said. “The north one has some trade-offs that have to be addressed – pedestrian safety vs speed of access onto Naito. You’re going to give up one for the other – it’s just a fact. And how that’s executed in design remains to be seen.”

First conceived in 2000, the James Beard Public Market passed a major milestone in December, when four Multnomah County-owned blocks were purchased for use in the project. As now envisioned, the public-private food market would consist of two 2-story halls joined under the Morrison Bridge’s west end by a walkable plaza. The indoor-outdoor market would feature restaurants, event space and more than 50 permanent vendors and 40 day-use tables.

MMDC also plans an 18-story mixed-use tower on one of the parcels.

Harbor Drive (or U.S. Route 99W) once was the city’s main freeway, but was removed in 1974 to make way for Tom McCall Waterfront Park. It was the rare example of a city replacing a limited-access road with a park, according to Ethan Seltzer, professor of urban studies at Portland State University.

“That was a pretty unusual move,” he said. “It was one of the things that marked a renaissance of community action and grassroots politics in Portland, and a kind of change in direction from a more-typical frame of mind of that era, to one that I think we’d recognize today.”

Several elements of the old Harbor Drive traffic-moving apparatus survive today, including the ramps on and off of the Steel Bridge at Waterfront Park. One “fugitive” ramp, Seltzer says, exists at the Hawthorne Bridge’s west end, behind Veritable Quandary, but is now closed off to traffic.

The Morrison Bridge’s north off-ramp, now being considered for realignment, is the last high-speed one remaining from the Harbor Drive days. The speed limit there is 35 mph.

“We’re planning on attracting a million or so folks a year to this market once it’s up and operating,” Granum said. “To do that, you’ve got to have safe access. Right now there’s no safe access. Something’s got to change, or we’ve got the wrong site.”

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A partner at Melvin Mark has purchased the assets of the company’s development division.

Dan Petrusich said the timing was right to take ownership of Melvin Mark Development Company: The land sale for the James Beard Public Market project closed recently, and the local commercial market is healthy.

“It’s a natural transition from where we were years and years ago to where we are today,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting.”

The parties wouldn’t divulge the financial specifics of the agreement.

Petrusich joined Melvin Mark 30 years ago and has led its development division since it was organized in 1989. He said last week that he plans to continue leading the company and keep all employees. He anticipated a new name being chosen soon.

Melvin Mark CEO Jim Mark agreed that the deal was a good move for both parties.

“He’s been here a long time and has done an awesome job – developed a lot of projects for us,” Mark said. “The timing works really well for us, as well. We’ve had a lot of partners retire in the last three, four years.

“We’re going to keep doing the things we’ve been doing; we just won’t necessarily have a development arm.”

No changes are planned for the development company’s current workload, which includes a 55,000-square-foot build-to-suit project for the Oregon Department of Human Services in Grants Pass.

Petrusich said that in particular, he’s excited about development of the James Beard Public Market at the Morrison Bridge‘s west end. He said he hopes to honor the legacy of the market’s first champion, Ronald M. Paul, who died Dec. 21 at 65 of complications from cancer.

“We’ll miss him,” Petrusich said. “We certainly want to carry on with his vision.”

Melvin Mark recently wrapped up the Yamhill Marketplace creative office project (92 percent leased), and the Northwest Thurman Building project (100 percent leased).

Melvin Mark was founded in Portland in 1945 and has worked on projects including Crown Plaza, Columbia Square and Central Plaza. The Melvin Mark Development Company also has worked on the Robert Duncan Plaza, Sunset Center at Tansabourne and the renovation of the former State Office Building (now the Fifth Avenue Building).

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The force behind the James Beard Public Market has died.

Local-food proponent and Portland restaurateur Ronald M. Paul died Dec. 21 of complications from cancer. He was 65.

“He was so much a visionary,” said Fred Granum, who succeeded Paul as executive director of the James Beard Public Market. “He brought his background as a chef to work for his community and moved into a successful career as a public servant. His loss saddens us all. He will be sorely missed.”

Paul was respected as a chef before entering public service as chief of staff to Charlie Hales when the mayor was a city commissioner from 1999 to 2002. Paul helped establish the vision of a public-private food market to rival Seattle’s Pike Place Market – to be named in honor of James Beard, a towering figure in American cooking and a Portland native.

For nine years, Paul led the effort to build the market at the Morrison Bridge‘s west end. Multnomah County has accepted a proposal to sell four blocks for use as the market. Conceptual designs have been adopted by the market’s board, and it expects the property purchase to close this month, according to Granum. The board has worked with Melvin Mark Development Co., architects Snohetta and SERA, and landscape architect Mayer/Reed.

Project delivery is scheduled for 2018.

Paul’s death came the same week that Portland was named by the Washington Post as America’s top food city.

“How fitting and how sad that this recognition comes now,” Hales posted on Twitter on Tuesday. “Thanks, chef, market-maker and civic entrepreneur Ron Paul.”

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Fred Granum, former CEO and president of the Portland State University Foundation, is the new executive director of the nonprofit James Beard Public Market.

Founding executive director Ron Paul is stepping down after nine years because of health reasons, Board President Richard Harris said.

Granum has successfully led businesses, nonprofits and task forces in both the private and public sectors, Harris said.

For more than a decade, plans to develop a market in the name of Portland’s most famous chef have been in the works. A location near the Morrison Bridge‘s west end will be the market’s home. Detailed information is available at .

The market is being designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta, which in June announced initial plans. Those include an approximately 80,000-square-foot market, a 45,000-square-foot ground-floor market hall with more than 150 food vendor stalls, a mezzanine level with a learning kitchen and event venue, a rooftop terrace, below-grade parking, and both indoor and outdoor gathering spaces.

Speaking for the market, Cody Sanger of LANE PR, hinted that the long process to develop the market may soon be closer to realization.

“The market has several moving parts right now and it will have more notable announcements to share in the next few weeks,” he said.

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A group of high school students interested in design careers has offered fresh views to a longtime effort to build a public market in Portland.

The two dozen students were participants last week in the annual University of Oregon Portland Design Camp hosted by the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Now in its seventh year, the weeklong camp is aimed at exposing teens to the closely aligned disciplines of architecture, digital arts and product design. This year, camp organizers partnered with the Historic Portland Public Market Foundation, a non-profit organization that for the past 15 years has worked to build the James Beard Public Market.

Camp participants had a chance to create their own designs for the proposed market – named for the Portland-born late chef, cookbook author, syndicated columnist and television personality . At the conclusion of the camp last Friday, the students shared their concepts with the public during an open house and final critique at the White Stag Block in Portland.

“We’re always thrilled to have new perspectives look at it,” said James Beard Public Market project manager Jennifer Mannhard. “We’re trying very hard, as far as outreach, to get as much general public involvement as possible. You never know where a brilliant idea will come from.”

The University of Oregon alumni who teach the camp were looking for a community-oriented theme and this year were inspired by the recent public release of conceptual designs for the market by Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta, said camp instructor Alex Atallah, a UO architecture graduate who now works for Portland-based GBD Architects.

“With the unveiling of the James Beard Public market, it was the perfect tie-in,” he said.

Connecting the camp’s lessons to the market project provided a real-world design problem to confront and ample opportunities for the students to explore what it would be like to work as a designer, according to Atallah.

“The main idea is getting high school students interested in design,” he said. “It’s getting them thinking about what they want to do.”

Working in groups similar to the way they would as design professionals, the students conceived their own versions of the James Beard Public Market on the proposed project site at the west end of the Morrison Bridge. Campers also designed logos for the market and products shoppers could use to carry produce and other purchases back to their homes.

“I think the James Beard Public Market is the perfect project for Design Camp because it shows the multidisciplinary and collaborative nature of design,” said Alison Ho, a freelance graphic designer and the camp’s digital arts instructor.

To inform their design decisions, camp participants toured the project site with Mannhard and the market foundation’s executive director Ron Paul, and visited a Portland farmers market to observe and sketch. Other field trips included a tour of GBD Architects’ downtown Portland office.

On Thursday, the students practiced their skills at architectural drawing by sketching the layout of their bedrooms and homes on a large piece of butcher paper tapped to the floor of a classroom in the White Stag Block.

Camp participant Norris Meigs, a freshman at Riverdale High School in Southwest Portland, said she enrolled in the camp because she was interested in graphic design. But after learning more about architecture in the camp, she’s considering pursuing a career as an architect.

While putting finishing touches on a drawing showing the layout of her house, Meigs said she appreciated that the camp offered the opportunity to consider how she would approach the James Beard Public Market project.

“I think it’s really fun, especially because there’s going to be a new (market) soon,” she said.

The camp helped Ella McMullin, a junior at St. Mary’s Academy in downtown Portland, answer a lot of her questions about what it’s like to work as an architect. She was also pleased to learn about the diverse range of design career opportunities.

“I like all the different parts of design there are,” she said.

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A conceptual design for the proposed James Beard Public Market in Portland was inspired by the way that preparation and enjoyment of food often becomes a social activity.

“One of the goals of the market is to bring people together,” said Craig Dykers, founding partner of Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta. “Food has always been one of those wonderful aspects of life that bring people together. It’s a wonderful place to create a cultural hub, so that’s been the genesis of our design.”

Snohetta designers on Wednesday made public their conceptual ideas for the market – named for the late chef, cookbook author, syndicated columnist and television personality who was born in Portland. The Historic Portland Public Market Foundation, a nonprofit that over the past 15 years has spearheaded efforts to build the market, last fall hired the firm to lead design of the project in collaboration with Portland-based firms SERA Architects, Studio Jeffreys and Mayer/Reed.

Dykers, who is based in Snohetta’s New York office, was in Portland this week to unveil the firm’s initial designs for the year-round public market on a Southwest Naito Parkway parking lot at the west end of the Morrison Bridge. He and other Snohetta staffers on Thursday shared their architectural concepts for the market with the public during an open house at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

The initial plans call for an approximately 80,000-square-foot market, including a 45,000-square-foot ground-floor market hall with more than 150 food vendor stalls, a mezzanine level with a learning kitchen and event venue, a rooftop terrace and below-grade parking. The glass-lined market hall would have tall, wood-clad ceilings with steel trusses inspired by the Morrison Bridge nearby. Also, ample seating and gathering spaces both indoors and outdoors would be included, as would connections to the adjacent Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

“The facade of the building will light the park up in the evenings, so it will be safer,” Dykers said.

The Snohetta team used feedback gathered during public meetings held this past December to help shape the design, he said. The unusual geometry of the project site, including two clover-leaf-shaped areas surrounded by the Morrison Bridge access ramps, and its history also factored into the architectural concept, he said.

The idea is for the James Beard Public Market to bring food production back to the riverfront site, Dykers said. It was once home to a market that was demolished in the 1950s to make way for the Harbor Drive roadway along the west side of the Willamette River. Harbor Drive later was replaced by Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

“We hope to revive that idea of the culture of making food on the waterfront,” Dykers said. “It’s also a place that’s underutilized today.”

The market design takes into account how visitors will travel through the space and provide customizable vendor stalls of various sizes, he said.

“We wanted the system of movement through the site to be real simple,” Dykers said. “The market runs continuously across all three parcels of land.”

The design also proposes a garden space between where the two Morrison Bridge ramps split in opposite directions. The garden would grow towering hops that would be visible to drivers heading into downtown Portland over the bridge, Dykers said.

“One of the first things you’ll see as a visitor is this grove of hops,” he said.

Ron Paul, director of the Historic Portland Public Market Foundation, said Snohetta’s conceptual designs will help the organization as it prepares for the project’s next phases. Financial consultant ECONorthwest in the next couple of months will complete a second economic analysis assessing the market’s feasibility, he said.

“The vendor rents will support the market,” Paul said. “We need to build the market debt-free.”

Snohetta’s designs will also be used to determine an estimated construction cost.

“Now that we have the concept design, we can do that process,” he said.

The foundation in the past few years has raised more than $2 million from public and private sources to help pay for planning costs; it’s now in the silent phase of its capital construction campaign, Paul said.

Construction is scheduled to start in early 2017 and finish in 2018.

James Beard Public Market

Anticipated construction start: early 2017

Anticipated construction finish: 2018

Architects: Snohetta, SERA Architects, Studio Jeffreys

Landscape architect: Mayer/Reed

Engineers: KPFF Consulting Engineers, Interface Engineering

Other associates: Melvin Mark Cos.

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