Cairn Pacific’s largest project to date requires the developer to deliver on a tall order – help create a neighborhood in the Con-way area, sandwiched between the Northwest District and Interstate 405, while playing off the successes and avoiding the mistakes made in the South Waterfront District and Pearl District.

The $175 million build-out encompasses the soon-to-be-built Leland James and east block buildings. The developments involve a mix of heights and uses, including residential, office and commercial.

Cairn Pacific, led by co-founders Tom DiChiara and Rob Hinnen, is leading the remake of the Northwest Portland neighborhood. The new developments are envisioned to link easily with the existing neighborhood to the west, including the retail- and restaurant-heavy blocks of Northwest 23rd Avenue, and eventually the Pearl District.

“We’re trying to get the right blend of residential, office, retail so the neighborhood can thrive,” DiChiara said.

A master plan completed in 2012 envisions Raleigh Street becoming the main east-west artery, and Cairn Pacific is planning retail spaces along Raleigh.

“Raleigh is going to be a primary artery between 23rd and 21st (avenues), with a lot of development going on,” DiChiara said.

The $40 million L.L. Hawkins mixed-use building completed last year was a joint venture of Cairn Pacific and Capstone Partners.

Another partnership between the two firms is taking place at Block 295W, where the Leland James three-story office building will feature 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The office floors will have relatively large 34,000-square-foot plates. A rooftop wood-frame penthouse will add 16,000 square feet.

The project team will retain the skeleton of the existing building at 1621 N.W. 21st Ave., but a thorough rebuild will clad the building in red brick and aluminum. SERA Architects is designing the Leland James building, and Andersen Construction and JBA will build it. A leasing push for the building, represented by David Squire at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, is under way.

DiChiara believes the Leland James’ large floor plates could attract a tech tenant, although he’s open to other uses as well.

“It certainly can cater to the tech guys, but it’s not exclusively tech-oriented,” he said.

The Leland James is named for the local businessman who founded Consolidated Truck Lines, which later became Con-way Inc.

Different uses, building heights, tenants

Nearby, on Block 294E, Cairn Pacific plans to construct three mixed-use buildings, of three, nine and 14 stories. Excavation on the parking areas on 294E is expected to begin in mid-June, after a sewer line is rerouted.

On Block 295E, the developer plans two residential buildings, one with three stories and one with six. Together they will add 385 market-rate residential units to the neighborhood. The east block developments will call for the use of two tower cranes.

The mix of heights is an important aspect of the growth in Northwest Portland, DiChiara said. In part, it’s a reaction to the point tower approach taken in the South Waterfront, and the flatter look of the Pearl District. In old cities, DiChiara said, a mix of heights arises naturally amid growth. He wants to recreate that aesthetic in Northwest Portland.

“There is a mix of heights,” he said. “The Pearl and the South Waterfront, it’s all the same height.”

New York-based investment firm BlackRock is Cairn Pacific’s investor for the Leland James project, and Wells Fargo is the lender. For the east block projects, Prometheus Real Estate Group of San Mateo, Calif., is the investor. A lender has not yet been chosen.

Cairn Pacific is looking to build upon the success of L.L. Hawkins. The building at 1515 N.W. 21st Ave. has 113 residential units, which are 90 percent leased. Notably, the leasing team has eschewed national chain businesses, instead luring local tenants with loyal followings.

Tenants include the Slabtown New Seasons grocery store, a Breakside Brewery pub, a pizzeria from the Breakside partners and the new home of Besaw’s, a landmark Portland restaurant. Besaw’s owner Cana Flug is also opening a dessert bar and patisserie called Solo Club; tenant improvements are under way now.

The grocery store gives the Northwest Portland neighborhood a leg up on the South Waterfront, which lacks one. New Seasons’ Slabtown location offers 28,000 square feet of high-end grocery products, and DiChiara said the store has been successful. He credited Capstone Partners with helping to lure the local grocery chain.

Cairn Pacific, working with GBD Architects and Holst Architecture, designed L.L. Hawkins to have various step-backs from the sidewalk and different aesthetic treatments to avoid a monolithic look and provide sidewalk seating.

“The small boutique retail spaces all have their own personality,” DiChiara said.

Each shop is encouraged to use unique signage, mostly lighted. As a result, the building has a nighttime presence.

“You come here at night, and there’s a feel,” DiChiara said.

Both the Leland James and the L.L. Hawkins have dozens of parking spaces.

“All of our projects have adequate parking,” DiChiara said. “Cars aren’t going anywhere.”

The developments are divided by pedestrian-friendly strips and green spaces. The east blocks will have a grove of 35-foot-tall sequoia trees and sitting areas. The L.L. Hawkins has an outdoor patio with a small rooftop garden that overlooks New Seasons.

Cairn Pacific’s ambitious plans extend further. The developer has also placed the George Morlan Plumbing building, at 2222 N.W. Raleigh St., under contract and likely will pursue entitlements this fall, DiChiara said. The developer plans to convert the building to housing above ground-floor retail space.

“It’s a lot of change coming. It’s a lot of construction coming,” DiChiara said. “I think it’s going to fit in well. It’s all quality brick buildings and durable materials.”

Space for storage and motor vehicles

Cairn Pacific and Capstone Partners aren’t the only developers at work in the area. At Northwest 21st Avenue and Quimby Street, Guardian Real Estate Services and Andersen are building a seven-story mixed-use tower. Designed by YBA Architects, the building will have 163 market-rate apartment units, 11,000 square feet of offices and 16,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

A nearby parcel was snatched up last week by a storage company, Security Public Storage-Portland LLC, for $8.75 million. The sale, brokered by CBRE Group, included two industrial buildings located at 2012 and 2050 N.W. Vaughn St.

The buildings are 25,500 and 28,456 square feet, respectively, on approximately 1.73 acres. The final sale price equated to a land value of more than $116 per square foot.

DiChiara said Cairn Pacific had the property under contract at one time, and was planning to build public storage units. But Cairn Pacific opted to focus on its other projects, he said.

“We couldn’t quite make sense of the economics,” he said.

DiChiara said he remains interested in doing more as the neighborhood develops.

“We’ll see what happens with the other real estate,” he said. “We’re certainly interested in being involved with more.”

The developments follow the Con-way master plan, adopted in 2012. XPO Logistics has taken over Con-way’s existing facilities.

John Bradley, planning committee chairman of the Northwest Neighborhood Association, said area residents have enjoyed a good working relationship with Cairn Pacific. The neighborhood association includes residents with professional expertise in architecture, land-use planning and law, he said.

Cairn Pacific “came in early, and they’re willing to listen,” Bradley said. “I think most of our concerns are traffic concerns. These were and still are fairly small streets.”

Bradley also noted that developers are pursuing market-rate housing to the exclusion of affordable units.

“It’s important to us to see a little bit of low-income housing, and most of what we’re seeing is market rate,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem like we’ve got a handle on how to (build) anything else but market rate, but hopefully that’ll change.”

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A former Con-way office building at 1621 N.W. 21st Avenue will soon be stripped to its bones and renovated into a modern building with old-fashioned charm and a rooftop garden.

More details on the renovation came to light at a predevelopment meeting with the city earlier this month, said Tom DiChiara of Cairn Pacific LLC.

Work on the building, to be called the Leland James Center, is in the design phase, he said. Capstone Partners and Cairn Pacific are renovating the building to create more than 115,000 square foot of rentable office space.

“We will take the old building down to its structural steel and then we are reconstructing the exterior,” said Chris Nelson, co-founder of Capstone Partners. “We’ll add new mechanical and electrical systems, create restaurant and retail space on the main floor below the office floors and have underground parking.”

Capstone will also add a floor to the three-story building to create a 10,000-square-foot penthouse space and a rooftop garden that will be shared by tenants.

Nelson said he’s hoping to find one tenant for the penthouse and a few others to occupy sizable spaces.

“We could do four tenant suites and the ground floor will be a mix of some retail and office space,” he said.

The building will have underground parking for about 80 cars, as well as a facility that includes bike lockers and showers.

The building renovation is part of the overall Con-way Master Plan that covers 17.5 acres and was approved by the city in 2011. The project will eventually deliver between 1,000 and 1,500 residential units, including some affordable housing, and approximately 500,000 total square feet of retail and office space.

A pedestrian mall will connect to other nearby developments, including a New Seasons store that will open this summer.

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A truckload of new construction is under way on and around the Con-way Master Plan site in Northwest Portland’s Slabtown neighborhood.

Tom DiChiara, principal at Cairn Pacific, the master developer for the effort, said his company will soon approach the city with design plans for the third building of the second phase. The Leland James Center, directly across Northwest Raleigh Street from the New Seasons store now under construction, will get an exterior face-lift and have its insides converted into 110,000 square feet of creative office space.

“We’re stripping the skin off and ripping the guts out,” DiChiara said. “The design will play off the New Seasons warehouse and integrate aspects of it over to this site.”

The three-story building has about 32,000 square feet of usable space on each floor. When complete, it will feature ground-floor retail space, two stories of creative office space and a new penthouse and rooftop terrace, DiChiara said.

“It’s unique because it’s got a large floor plate compared to other buildings in the area,” he said. “We think it will be of interest to single tenants who need more space.”

The timeline for the renovation of what DiChiara is calling the LJC Building is expected to be the same as one for a large construction project just to the east that Cairn Pacific is developing as part of the Con-way Master Plan.

DiChiara and GBD Architects representatives on Tuesday met with Bureau of Development Services staff to discuss preliminary designs for that large project, which will deliver 370 residential spaces, ground-level retail space and 600 below-grade parking spaces in one 14-story, one six-story and one three-story building.

This second phase is being developed on two blocks – 294 East and 295 East – currently used as surface parking bounded on the north by Northwest Thurman Street, on the south by Raleigh Street and on the east by 21st Avenue.

“When we’re done, Savier Street, which doesn’t go through there right now, will be reconnected,” DiChiara said.

The 14-story building, on the block north of the three- and six-story buildings, will occupy a “marquee” location, DiChiara said, and be the tallest in the area.

“We didn’t hear any objections about the height during the design meeting,” he said. “I think the way we’re crafting the building it really fits in well with the context of the neighborhood.”

DiChiara is hoping to get construction crews to begin digging out space for the garage toward the end of the year, and said he expects a 21-month construction schedule.

“It’s a very complicated project,” he said. “It’s kind of like a jigsaw puzzle to make all the pieces work.”

The first phase of the approximately $150 million Con-way Slabtown project is nearing completion, with New Seasons set to open in early August and the adjacent 113-unit apartment complex to follow a few weeks later.

Tenant improvements for the New Seasons store at Slabtown Marketplace began this week, according to Brian Alger, president of Vancouver, Wash.-based John Residential Construction Group LLC, the company overseeing the Con-way Slabtown project at Block 296, bounded by Northwest Raleigh and Quimby streets and 21st and 22nd avenues.

“They’re finished with the work on the seismic retrofit,” he said. “It’s just an empty building inside right now with a gravel floor because a lot of below-ground work needs to be done.”

Slabtown Marketplace – which will hold New Seasons and two, smaller retail spaces – and the adjacent L.L. Hawkins apartments – a six-story building with 113 residential units, ground-floor retail and below-grade parking – are the first buildings being constructed as part of the Con-way Master Plan to redevelop 17 acres into a mix of housing, office and retail space, pedestrian walkways, plazas and green space.

At a property just south of the Con-way’s Slabtown development, at 2120 to 2140 N.W. Quimby St., developers have applied to the Bureau of Development Services for a permit to begin partial demolition of an existing tilt-up warehouse. The demolition is the first step in GRES Landing Investors LLC‘s plan to incorporate part of the warehouse building into a new seven-story mixed use building with 163 units, 27,000 square feet of office and retail space and in-building parking for 105 cars.

The approximately $32 million project – known as Q21 – is being developed as a partnership between Guardian Real Estate Services and Andersen Construction in response to the Con-way Slabtown development.

Alex Yale, a principal at Portland-based YBA Architects and the project’s lead designer, said Q21 is a “gateway” to the Con-way project.

“This site is kind of a missing tooth in terms of the development,” Yale said. “When you’re coming north on 21st, it’s the first thing you’ll see as you approach New Seasons and the Con-way Master Plan. (Q21’s) design is in response to that development.”

Once approved for demolition, crews will remove about 50 percent of the 37-year-old building and reuse as much of the original structure as possible in order to retain the warehouse feel.

“We’re ripping out the guts of the building and putting in new post-tension concrete,” Yale said. “We’re saving as much as we can and basically creating a new, mixed-use building inside the warehouse. Like many other repurposed Portland warehouses, this building is able to tell a story by leaving the remnants of the old construction.”

If all goes as planned, Q21 developers are aiming to get demo crews working at the end of February. They’re shooting for a 16-month construction schedule, Yale said.

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