A frequent concern for Gerding Edlen CEO Mark Edlen is the impression that the Portland-based development company’s projects will make on neighborhoods.

“We used to think sustainability was a big deal, but today for us it’s building communities,” he said. “I think people are looking for more, richer ways to interact. To us, that’s what we think community is about. We think the buildings that we build have an enormous impact.”

With Portland communities in flux because of a boom in development, Edlen on Thursday joined three other industry professionals on a panel to discuss how to create inclusive, livable neighborhoods across the city. The “Designing Better Neighborhoods” event was hosted by Design Museum Portland at the Portland office of engineering firm Glumac.

Panelist and moderator Randy Gragg, executive director of the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center, steered the discussion toward topics that included identifying ways to improve East Portland and addressing concerns about demolitions of older residences.

“We have a lot of heartburn going on in terms of change in historic neighborhoods,” Gragg said.

Panelist Jeff Stuhr, co-founder of Portland-based Holst Architecture, said it’s important for architects to investigate whether it’s possible to save an existing building or replace it with a thoughtful design.

“We’ve yet to elevate that conversation beyond historic preservation,” he said. “When we take down buildings and replace them with inefficient buildings, that’s not what we want to do. I think we need to change the conversation. I think this process of renewal and growth is natural.”

Acknowledging neighborhood opposition to development is crucial, said panelist DeAunne Denmark, a Pacific Northwest College of Art instructor who teaches a course that applies the principles of cognitive and behavioral neuroscience to design thinking.

“You get this vehement pushback, and it’s often because they want to feel like they have a stake in it,” she said. “If you don’t design well for the culture that’s in place you see these problems come out around it. The design process itself has to change. If the neighborhood itself wants historic preservation, it behooves you to find out why.”

The longevity of a development is one reason why its design must consider the larger impact, Edlen said.

“In our industry it’s very capital intensive; there’s a tremendous amount of risk,” he said. “One of the things we talk about a lot (is) … it’s a 100- to 200-year asset. It’s going to be around for a long time.”

Panelists also discussed ways to create better neighborhoods in underdeveloped areas in Portland east of 82nd Avenue.

“How can we create a sense of a neighborhood out there from this very piecemeal urbanism?” Gragg asked.

Some basic city amenities would be a great start, said Edlen, a Portland Development Commission board member.

“I think we’ve got to move faster,” he said. “We’ve got to have a public process, but we’ve got to move the needle faster on issues like parks and sidewalks.”

Stuhr pointed out that the larger lots available in East Portland could be advantageous for future development.

“I see this as a great potential benefit for the city rather than having to design the 200-by-200-foot square,” he said. “From a design standpoint, we have opportunities that we don’t have anywhere else. This is going to be the next big opportunity for density in the city.”

Redeveloping East Portland will also involve consideration of the needs of lower-income neighborhoods with more diversity than in other parts of the city, Denmark said. What worked downtown or in the Pearl District may not apply, she said.

“You can’t just impose those values on people that don’t want them,” Denmark said.

That doesn’t mean the standard of architecture in East Portland should be different, Stuhr said.

“Design makes a difference, and a lot of times when you’re working with a marginalized community you have to convince them of that,” he said. “People out there deserve good design just as much as we do in the inner city core.”

The post Improving neighborhoods through design appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Developer Mark Edlen discovered he was a candidate to fill the vacancy being left by outgoing Portland Development Commission board chairman Scott Andrews at his going-away party.

That was when Portland Mayor Charlie Hales grabbed Edlen, CEO of Gerding Edlen Development, by his sleeve and asked if he would take the position, Edlen said. He accepted the nomination after discussing the possibility with family, colleagues and four current commissioners.

Edlen, 61, said he considers the opportunity, subject to City Council approval, a way to give back to the community that fueled much of his company’s growth and focus on sustainability.

“I love our city, the political process, the design review process,” he said. “I think we have something very special, especially as I work with more people across the country. I feel the need to give back.”

The addition of Edlen would balance out a board that lost its development voice when Andrews, president of Melvin Mark Properties, stepped down in July, city and commission leaders say. Andrews had served on the commission since 2008 and became chairman in 2009.

“I’m really excited because Mark’s insights into the world of development will be very helpful,” said Tom Kelly, who became commission chairman in June. “He will be the only developer and will provide the insights of a developer as we move forward.”

Edlen said he will focus on creating jobs and a sense of place in neighborhoods such as Lents that have not experienced as much of a building boom as others.

“I strongly believe in the Portland process,” he said. “I love the fact that we have strong neighborhoods, and I believe those neighborhoods belong to people who live there. We should knit ourselves into those neighborhoods and not be opposed to them.”

Edlen also wants to open up opportunities to newer and younger firms that are starting to emerge in Portland.

“I am really impressed with the younger people coming into the business,” he said. “Together, I think we can do cool things.”

No date has been set for the City Council’s vote on Edlen’s appointment, but it is expected to take place in September.

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Before I moved to Portland from Louisiana, I’d tell all my sustainability-challenged Southern friends, “Hey, you guys, we can recycle. We can use light rail. We can eat local and organic. Portland does it!”

Now that I live here and those same friends call me “granola,” my pride sense of greater good tells me Portlanders should keep the green dream alive.

And then along comes , which combines that endeavor with drinking.

Tomorrow, the sponsored by Oregon Humanities will hit up Rontoms to ask “What makes Portland livable?” The group discussion will focus on Portland’s reputation as a model city and its future growth and development changes.

On hand will be our favorite sustainable developer Mark Edlen, cofounding member of Gerding Edlen Development, as well as Tom Manley, president of Pacific Northwest College of Art. Conversation will be moderated by Ethan Seltzer, a professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University.

The event is free and open to the public (as long as you’re 21 or older).

Think & Drink at Rontoms | What Makes Portland Livable? is Wednesday, July 20 at 6 p.m. at Rontoms, 600 E. Burnside St. Admission is free.

Photo by via Flickr

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“It just wasn’t fun anymore.”

Barry Cain, president of Tualatin-based Gramor Development and one of the many eternal optimists in the industry, lost enthusiasm for his work in the past three years.

It’s a clear indication that business in Portland was as bad as it ever had been … or maybe worse. Even some of the area’s most notable developers were conspicuously absent from the public eye during the recession.

Now, however, many say they’re ready to return to the business of building Portland – although it won’t be business as usual. While most would welcome the return of high rental rates and low vacancies of 2006, they agree that the most recent downturn has taught them the importance of conservativeness and thorough planning.

“It’s a lot easier to juggle the balls and get caught up in the fast pace of the industry when you are going up,” Cain said. “But when things head down it doesn’t take long to remember how important being cautious is.”

A lot of what Gramor did in its first 25 years helped the company navigate this recession, Cain said. But he still gleaned some lessons from this downturn.

“I’ve had it reaffirmed that a good rule to live by is don’t buy the land before you know what you’re going to do with it and you’re ready to use it,” he said.

Cain’s company is beginning work on its biggest project since the recession hit, Progress Ridge TownSquare in Beaverton. In the past, Cain would have moved forward with a project before any anchor tenants were secured. But this time, he decided to wait until he had agreements signed by three anchor tenants and nine additional tenants.

“This industry lost some good developers, and frankly, good people, because they bought land on speculation before the recession,” Cain said.

Art DeMuro, president of Venerable Properties, said he was a fairly conservative borrower even before the financial markets collapsed in the past couple of years.

“The ones that stayed liquid and didn’t over-leverage are the developers that are still here to talk about,” he said. “We compete in a free enterprise system and there is going to be cycles in both directions, so we just don’t want to over-commit to anything.”

DeMuro said he has learned that he has a stake in the success of all of his tenants. Instead of focusing on locking tenants into long-term leases simply to fill spaces, DeMuro plans to conduct his own research to make sure he has the right tenant for the right space in the right part of town.

Developers are generally optimistic that the market is experiencing a turnaround, but they all believe that more job growth is needed before Portland can experience a full recovery.

“The office market and retail market both rely heavily on job growth,” said Mark Edlen, managing principal of Gerding Edlen Development. “So we are going to be really cautious before going ahead with any of those types of projects.”

Instead, Edlen’s company is looking at apartments as a good investment in Portland nowadays. Over the past nine months, the company has leased 265 apartments at the Indigo, where only seven units are still vacant. Another downtown Portland complex, the Cyan, hit 85 percent occupancy during the same time period.

Beam Development Principal Brad Malsin, meanwhile, is looking at building more office space. He thinks projects such as the Convention Plaza Building, part of the Burnside Bridgehead redevelopment site, can convince new businesses to locate in Portland and spur job creation.

“To improve employment in Portland we don’t need more class-A office space; we need as many creative, flexible and cost-effective spaces as possible,” Malsin said. “We need to create employment districts and business districts that bring the creative population in Portland together and let them collaborate.

“This is what we’ve always tried to do, but now we want to be even more selective on what we do. We want everything to fit our brand and fit our strategy.”

Developers said they were glad to still be in business.

“These cycles are part of the industry, but they are still tough to go through,” DeMuro said. “But I think I can speak for most developers in town when I say that just because things are tough, I haven’t lost my faith in the industry, in Portland or the tenants we build for.”

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Art DeMuro remembers hitting the point of no return in the redevelopment of the White Stag Block in Portland.

After boasting for months to University of Oregon higher-ups that the renovation of the historic block would make the perfect home for the university’s architecture school, the president of Venerable Properties walked into a crowded conference room one morning. Architects and UO staff were all nodding in agreement over DeMuro’s plan to turn three ailing industrial buildings from the late 19^th century into a modern educational facility.

And that’s when DeMuro realized that he and the project were linked, for better or worse, until the end.

“There’s an old saying about the dog that chases the car,” Demuro said. “What will he do when he finally catches it? With older buildings, you chase a vision of what they might become with all of your might. Then you have a moment where you think, ‘Oh my God. Now I actually have to do what I said I was going to do.'”

For developers like DeMuro, Brad Malsin, and Mark Edlen, the opportunity to pluck an older building from obscurity and bring it into the modern day is too good to pass up. With little promise of profit, and little knowledge of what they’ll find in the walls of these older structures, Malsin said, the desire to redevelop starts with a connection.

The art of listening

Whether it’s an interesting location, a rich history or architectural significance, Malsin, president of Beam Development, doesn’t undergo the work it takes to renovate an older building, like his Olympic Mills office development in the Central Eastside, unless it speaks to him.

Once that connection is made, a process begins for Malsin that borders on obsession. His most intensive project, he said, was the Fairmount Apartments at Northwest 26^th Avenue and Vaughn Street. Constructed as a temporary hotel for the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1904, the building wasn’t meant to survive beyond the exposition.

By the time the building caught Malsin’s eye in 1999, it was in such poor condition that the city was planning on tearing it down. Malsin, however, was hooked on saving the building, even if it meant going to extremes. He incurred the expense of having the structure lifted so new foundations could be poured in order to bring the building up to current city seismic codes. Today, the building’s apartments operate as affordable housing.

“You fall in love with the building first and deal with the challenges to get it to maturity,” Malsin said. “It’s just like having kids. You adopt this building, bring it up and put it back into public use. But it’s always your child. I have an attachment to every building I’ve touched.”

Lessons in perseverance

DeMuro is currently chasing Washington High School, a vacant Southeast Portland school built in 1906. Mired in budgetary woes, Portland Public Schools, which owns the building, doesn’t have the school’s redevelopment high on its agenda. And possible funding from Portland Parks and Recreation to remake the school into a community center died with a decision by Parks and Recreation to not pursue a bond measure this year. Developers who have tried to turn the school into housing in the past abandoned the efforts once they saw the price tag.

Still, DeMuro won’t walk away from Washington High. The desire to see the building brought back into the community is too strong, he said.

“After I worked on another renovation at in the neighborhood, I felt this connection to the place where Washington High is located,” DeMuro said. “I’ve never done a school rehab. The project doesn’t have a high probability of a successful conclusion, yet it could have so much community impact.”

A historic investment

When Mark Edlen, president of Gerding Edlen, and his firm tackled the Brewery Blocks in Northwest Portland, a commitment was made to preserve the former Henry Weinhard brewery and Portland Armory even though the monumental financial investment would result in little payback to the development company. Just to keep a non-functioning smokestack on the Weinhard brewery building in place, for example, Edlen’s firm shelled out an extra $750,000.

Edlen says his firm lost money on the brewery renovation, but the preservation work added value to the overall redevelopment of the Brewery Blocks, which have made money.

“We lost money on the brew house renovation,” Edlen said, “but it creates this rich texture at the street level. Could we have made more money without it? Yes. But you only have one shot at preserving something. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Edlen, Malsin and DeMuro all say they are less driven by the fear of recouping an investment than by the fear of losing something that cannot be replaced. In cities where developers have torn down and built up to the point where no older buildings remain, there is a sense of anonymity, according to Malsin.

“If you were blindfolded and dropped into some of these places, you couldn’t identify where you were,” he said. “A city’s historic inventory distinguishes it from other places. When you tear down buildings no one could afford to build or would build today, you lose that uniqueness.”

Next on his plate, Malsin will redevelop Convention Plaza, a historic eastside office building he encouraged the city of Portland to save from the wrecking ball. A former Meier and Frank warehouse in Northwest Portland is Edlen’s next preservation project – if he can find enough tenants to fill the structure.

As for DeMuro, he plans to continue seeking out a new use for the Washington High School building.

“Successful people are not that way because they are so in love with success,” he said. “It’s out of fear of failure. These projects take you down a longer and steeper path than you first expected. After enough time and hurdles pass, you look up one day and see how far you’ve traveled. The pursuit is the intoxicant. You just don’t want to admit it can’t be done.”

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