Take TriMet’s 4 bus from downtown Portland to St. Johns, and the trip serves as a rolling tour of the gradual gentrification of North Portland.

Riders travel along trendy Mississippi Avenue, with its high-end boutiques like Paxton Gate, which sells exotic taxidermy, and then onto Albina Avenue, a historically African-American neighborhood that has seen an influx of new residents and multifamily construction.

The bus line ends at St. Johns. There, in the shadow of the iconic, spearmint-green bridge spanning the Willamette River, a transformation is about to take place.

The North Portland neighborhood, long home to industrial sites and a racially and economically diverse population, is poised to see dense multifamily and commercial development of the type that has already transformed many of Portland’s close-in Eastside neighborhoods.

Two developers are responsible for a batch of new projects: Mainland Northwest, the Portland office of a Nashville, Tennessee-based developer; and Farid Bolouri, a local dentist turned developer. They’re following in the footsteps of PHK Development. Its Marvel 29, which opened in 2015, appears in retrospect to have laid the groundwork for changes to come.

Mainland Northwest is focused on several blocks near the Willamette River.

“We’d been looking for opportunity sites where everyone else was – the Southeast, Northeast, Interstate,” said Brian Wilson, a partner in the Portland office.

Then, a broker told him about property in St. Johns.

“It is one of the last close-in, affordable neighborhoods that is walkable, with good services, that hasn’t been overbuilt,” he said.

Mainland Northwest is planning to scrape the Steel Hammer site – 14.5 riverfront acres, including 8.5 acres of buildable land – for future development. Industrial businesses such as Columbia Forge & Machine Works are moving out, and Mainland Northwest is forging ahead with plans for mixed-use construction.

Ahead of the large Steel Hammer parcels, Mainland Northwest will develop two other blocks with multifamily projects.

A brief history of St. Johns

St. Johns was once a town unto itself. James Johns settled in the area in 1844 after moving from Linnton, according to the St. Johns Neighborhood Association. By 1849, 12 families were living in the area.

The proposed Steel Hammer development site is, according to Wilson, where Johns once landed his ferry.

St. Johns was recognized by the Oregon Legislature as a municipality in 1902. It was annexed by the city of Portland in 1915.

Marvel 29

Patrick Kessi, founder and president of PHK Development Inc., developed an affinity for St. Johns after exploring the neighborhood as a University of Portland student. He eventually raised his family in the neighborhood.

“It seems like it’s its own city out there,” he said. “I really like that community feel, and the sense of community there. I felt a quality development would be well-received by the community.”

In 2014, PHK completed Marvel 29 at the keystone intersection of North Philadelphia Avenue and Ivanhoe Street. The 127,720-square-foot building has 165 multifamily units and two retail spaces of about 900 square feet each that are occupied by Hoplandia and Pizza Nostra.

PHK still owns Marvel 29, which has received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Marvel 29 was the first modern, mixed-use development with underground parking in the neighborhood. The project was leased in about six months.

“It leased up faster than what we expected,” Kessi said.

Who is behind Mainland Northwest?

Mainland Northwest, a limited liability company, is a local subsidiary of The Mainland Companies LLC. Wilson and Ben Wood are the Portland-based partners.

Wilson is a native Portlander who previously worked at his family’s real estate firm, Kalberer Company. He has also been politically active, serving on the Portland Housing Advisory Commission and, in 2014, mounting an unsuccessful campaign against Jules Bailey for a spot on the Multnomah County Commission.

Wood previously co-founded and served as managing director of Promontory Healthcare Cos. He joined Mainland through a connection to the company’s CEO, Kenneth Larish – the pair met while attending Lewis & Clark Law School.

Mainland is backed by additional private investors, Wilson said.

North Crawford Street

Mainland Northwest is awaiting a building permit to begin construction on a full block of North Crawford Street between John and Charleston avenues. Plans for the 80,000-square-foot development call for 101 units, including 11 townhomes and 11 two-bedroom units. The balance will be split evenly between one-bedroom and studio apartments. A landscaped public plaza will be included. Pavilion Construction is the general contractor, and STACK Architecture is responsible for the design.

The vacant lot is fenced off, with dense brush covering the site.

Mainland Northwest expects to have a building permit in hand by late September, and then begin construction.

North Richmond Avenue

A similar building is planned on North Richmond Avenue with approximately 80 apartment units.

“That’s on a fast track,” Wilson said.

SERA Architects is designing the project, and R&H Construction has been selected to build it.

Steel Hammer site

Mainland Northwest is in the process of buying the 14.5-acre site along North Crawford Street from Tom Leaptrott, who owns Columbia Forge & Machine Works and Steel Hammer Properties LLC. The transaction will be split into two pieces because of liability related to the area’s Superfund designation. Mainland expects to take ownership of the first parcel by the end of the year, Wilson said.

GBD Architects is at work on a riparian redevelopment master plan for the site, Wilson said. The site is targeted for significant residential and commercial development.

In 2014, Leaptrott put the property up for sale and petitioned the city of Portland to change the zoning to allow for mixed-use development.

Mainland Northwest is looking to develop the forlorn parcels, Wilson said.

“There’s a desire to find dirt that other people can’t make sense of,” he said. “We want to bring our particular vision of not impacting the surrounding historic neighborhood by not displacing people.”

Industry is no longer dependent on using riverfront property. Redeveloping it makes sense, Wilson said.

“It’s not big enough for industrial users to use,” he said. “We don’t use the river that way anymore.”

Mainland Northwest has committed to building a stretch of the Willamette River Greenway across the property. Union Pacific Railroad tracks also run adjacent to the property. Wilson said he’s had initial conversations with railroad officials.

With the three sites, and possible further development in St. Johns, Mainland Northwest is looking to build hundreds of apartments.

“It could be, ballpark, 1,000 units,” Wood said.

That may not be all: Mainland Northwest is also considering other properties in the area.

“We have a couple of other opportunities we’re kicking tires on,” Wilson said.

Who is Farid Bolouri?

A co-founder of Portland Dental Group, Bolouri previously made news when he developed in Sellwood a four-story mixed-use building that required demolition in 2013 of a 107-year-old building that housed the Black Cat Tavern.

In 2014, Bolouri purchased for $395,000 a St. Johns property at North Lombard Street and Charleston Avenue. He has moved forward with development of The Union at St. Johns – a four-story mixed-use building.

“It was a very controversial project in the neighborhood because the city actually vacated public property to him,” said Lindsay Jensen, executive director of St. Johns Main Street. She wrote the city a letter in support of the project.

Bolouri did not respond to messages seeking comment on The Union at St. Johns.

The Union at St. Johns

In a walkable area near several eateries and bars, a construction crane looms over a massive hole in the ground. The block is the future site of The Union at St. Johns, which will have 20,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space topped by 106 residential units. Plans also call for 89 below-ground parking spaces. Alan Jones of Jones Architecture designed the project, and R&H Construction is building it. Construction began earlier this summer.

What’s next?

St. Johns has seen a surge of new businesses move in. Many are in a warehouse that formerly housed Columbia Sportswear. It now hosts Occidental Brewing, a German-inspired brewery that this summer opened a wursthaus restaurant; Refuge PDX, which does special effects for the TV show “Grimm;” and Something Borrowed, which rents numerous items for weddings and other events.

The industrial area near the bridge is home to an idiosyncratic mix of businesses, including an outboard motor repair shop.

Some are leaving ahead of the coming development. Leaptrott is moving Columbia Forge & Machine Works to Washougal, Washington.

“I love St. Johns, but the city of Portland is awful to do business in,” he said, citing rampant homelessness, excessive regulation and an unfriendly business environment.

Leaptrott said he needs private security around the metalworking shop. Homeless camps sit nearby.

Many of St. Johns’ incumbent landowners are looking to sell and move on, Wilson said.

“A lot of these guys have been here for decades, and they’re on the glide path to figure out what they’re going to do with their next stage in life,” he said. “It’s a perfect transition.”

The post St. Johns en route to transformation appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

If things had gone differently for Patrick Kessi, he might have ended up as a stockbroker on Wall Street instead of a developer creating mixed-use projects in the Portland-metro area.

Kessi began investing money in the stock market while he was in high school and studied finance at the University of Portland. In the summer of his sophomore year, however, his life took a different turn. He bought a house that he rented out to some of his college buddies. One house led to two more during his junior year.

After Kessi graduated from college, he began working on single-family, duplex and four-plex remodels. Around 2003, he started doing mixed-use and multifamily developments. He hasn’t looked back since.

For Kessi, the projects he works on through his firm PHK Development are as much about making other people’s dreams come true as about realizing his own vision. While working on the design of Marvel 29, a mixed-use project in the St. Johns area of Portland, Kessi brought together residents as well as the owners of small businesses in the area. He took their suggestions – and their concerns – to heart.

For his current project, the Wizer Block development in Lake Oswego, he’s helping realize the goal of Gene Wizer. The former owner of the property wanted it to become a contribution to the city’s downtown area.

“He wanted a mixed-use development there,” Kessi said. “He wanted to bring people into the downtown core.”

Although Gene Wizer died last year, he did get to see ground broken on the 290,000-square-foot project as well as hear that the Oregon Supreme Court had ruled in favor of allowing work to move forward despite some neighborhood opposition.

“He heard that and he was delighted,” Kessi said.

Even in the face of opposition, Kessi’s buildings often win people over once the last brick is set in place, the last nail is hammered and the doors finally open for business.

For the Marvel 29 project, the strong ties Kessi had built with the community were evident when neighborhood residents turned out in full force recently to celebrate Marvel 29 being officially recognized as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum building.

“Sometimes we have to do tough things to do great things,” Kessi said.

The post Newsmakers 2016: Patrick Kessi appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A mixed-use development built near the base of the St. John’s Bridge has received a platinum designation in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system.

Marvel 29, built on a site that previously held an old gas station and restaurant, is the first project built under a HUD 221(d) (4) program to receive the highest rating in the LEED program, according to project developer PHK Development.

With an eye toward creating a highly sustainable project, the development team sought out as many local and regional materials as possible to reduce the building’s carbon footprint, PHK’s Patrick Kessi said.

The project was designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects. Walsh Construction served as the general contractor.

The post Marvel 29 wins LEED platinum designation appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The St. Johns neighborhood feels it has been burned by developers before, says Joe Purkey, an architect who lives there, but now people are getting more involved about what goes up in their community.

A good example was a July 7 between about 60 St. Johns area business owners and architect Alan Jones of Jones Architecture. Jones is working on a design for a three-building, mixed-use project in the business district of St. Johns. It will include 100 apartments, 20,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space and underground parking at North Lombard Street and North Charleston Avenue.

The project, to be called The Union at St. Johns, will be mostly small apartments and may include some affordable housing. Construction could start as early as January. Shapiro Didway is the landscape architect for the project. The developer is Milwaukie dentist Dr. Farid Bolouri, who also was at the meeting.

Purkey said businesses and residents in St. Johns have gotten more involved in asking questions about the design of buildings rising in the area since he feels they “got burned” when a large storage facility was built in the retail center of the neighborhood.

“The storage unit wasn’t the most appropriate thing for downtown retail, and community leadership wasn’t well-versed on how the process worked,” Purkey said. “They were pretty upset.”

Another project the neighbor had some gripes about was the construction of the Marvel 29 apartments at the foot of the St. John’s Bridge, according to Purkey. The project met the design rule for the neighborhood of no building over 50 feet wide by putting up strips of bricks every 50 feet.

“The city of Portland accepted the architect’s argument that the brick stripes break up the building, but it really doesn’t,” Purkey said.

AMICABLE DISCUSSION

While Jones was peppered with questions from the audience at July 7 meeting, it ended amicably, with both sides agreeing to meet again to continue the discussion.

More meetings between developers and citizens can keep development surprises from being sprung on a community, Purkey said.

One of the biggest concerns at the St. John’s meeting was the effect of traffic interruption on businesses along Lombard Street, but Jones said those would be minimal and the street will be kept open during construction. People also asked questions about bike lanes, traffic signals and more.

“We’re not reconfiguring any streets, but we are reconfiguring some traffic signals,” Jones said.

Denny Hassler, a salesman at The Man’s Shop, asked if Jones could provide a construction schedule that could be shared with other St. Johns merchants. He said business owners would also like to see some signage directing people to the downtown shopping area.

Hassler said he is concerned about traffic slowdowns affecting business.

“Our customers aren’t going to ride a bike to buy a suit,” he said.

Hassler also asked the developer for email communications about when and where any disruptive work would be going on.

“We will give you a week’s notice, at least,” owner Bolouri promised.

The work will include removing a slip lane on Lombard Street and relocating the right turn lane, which might take a couple of months, Jones said, but the street will be kept open and will only close for one- or two-hour intervals.

Construction will be in two phases, Bolouri said, starting with work on the right turn lane. Care will be taken about when big trucks make deliveries so as not to disturb the neighborhood, he said. Jones also noted that the construction site is near a school and a library, but the work will be kept out of sight behind a fence.

Bolouri said he understood the concerns of business owners.

“I enjoy development, but I’m a dentist and I’m out of business if my patients can’t get in and out,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is surprise (anyone).”

Jones said he and Bolouri plan to meet several more times with business owners and will continue to meet with the St. John’s Neighborhood Association about the project.

Jones said a regular practice during design review is to have at least one meeting with neighborhood representatives, but he believes in doing more.

“We expect to present for design review in September 2015, with construction commencing the first quarter of 2016,” Jones said.

PRESERVING CHARACTER

Purkey said he and others have gotten involved in engaging developers and designers about future projects because they don’t want to see their neighborhood’s “streetcar era architectural style” turned into something else. He said other neighborhoods, such as along North Mississippi Avenue and Division Street, were “changed drastically” by developers.

“The residents lost their neighborhood to a completely new neighborhood,” he said. “St. John’s residents have been watching (other developments) and want to make sure our community culture and architectural character remains intact as much as possible as growth happens,” he said.

“Developers coming into St. Johns really need to be answerable to the community and hopefully to other communities throughout Portland.”

So far, Jones and Bolouri have been extremely cooperative in working with St. Johns residents, Purkey said.

“They have been pretty willing to meet with the community and the community encouraged them through letters and lots of emails,” he said. “We are pretty engaged at this point.”

That only makes sense, Purkey said, because more communication can lead to less conflict between developers and residents.

The Marvel 29 apartments became a “tipping point” that led more citizens to get involved with development planning, he said.

Although plans are not yet finalized, business owners attending the July 7 meeting said the design so far for Bolouri’s project seems to fit into the character of the neighborhood.

The three buildings will each be set back at varying distances from the sidewalk along Lombard Street, Purkey said, although there will still be a long wall along Charleston Avenue.

“It is not perfect but better than Marvel 29 at breaking up the massing,” Purkey said.

The post Businesses, residents taking larger role in how St. Johns grows appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Rooftop terraces at Portland multifamily developments are becoming more than merely planters and outdoor furniture. Now, as high-end outdoor amenity spaces, they are intended to attract prospective tenants in a competitive market.

“These are amenities that renters are looking for and also expecting,” said Steve Shapiro, principal with Portland-based Shapiro Didway. “Designers and developers are trying to create these spaces that are very resort-like.”

Shapiro Didway is among Portland-area landscape architecture firms designing ritzy rooftop terraces with features such as fire tables, barbecue grills, outdoor kitchens or wet bars, dog runs, vegetable gardens, movie screens and hot tubs. Terraces, roof gardens and green roofs previously represented ways to meet city stormwater management requirements; now they’re desired by prospective tenants.

“It’s a high percentage of the work that we do,” Shapiro said. “It just makes for a better living environment for everybody.”

Construction of outdoor amenity terraces can be expensive because the process often involves using a crane to lift components. However, they’re often a worthwhile investment, said Steven Koch, a principal with Portland-based Koch Landscape Architecture. Much of the firm’s commercial work involves designing outdoor amenity spaces for apartment buildings. Recent designs include rooftop decks on Mill Creek Residential Trust‘s Sky3 Place under construction in Southwest Portland, and PHK Development‘s Marvel 29 completed recently in St. Johns.

“It’s more capital outlay for the owners,” Koch said. “Some developers are finally realizing their value as marketing tools … They get their value back because there is an added level of appeal.”

The added cost of building a rooftop terrace is often worth it when the completed development rents out quickly, said Lee Novak, vice president of Las Vegas-based Fore Property Co., which is developing several multifamily projects in Portland. Fore’s Waterline luxury apartments in Northwest Portland, slated to be complete next month, will feature a rooftop deck with a wet bar, an outdoor movie screen and prime views of the Willamette River and Mount Hood, he said.

“It’s just a really fun space,” he said. “It maximizes the location we have. It’s a very nice amenity that prospective residents have commented on and asked about.”

Two other apartment projects the company is developing north of the Waterline and in John’s Landing will also include rooftop terraces. The trend toward offering these outdoor spaces on large-scale apartment developments will likely continue as developers compete for tenants, Novak said.

“It’s going to become more and more common as people try to differentiate themselves,” he said. “All of the amenities are in a way trying to create a better quality of life for residents. A roof deck is one of those amenities that hits that (mark).”

Challenges for landscape architects and architects designing rooftop terraces include paying careful attention to the weight of soils and plants, and waterproofing against moisture seeping into the level below. The added weight of a terrace is one reason why spaces often are placed on the second story, atop the sturdier concrete ground-story or podium level, instead of over wood-frame upper stories, Koch said.

“We can’t plant giant sequoias,” he said. “There is a need to be cognizant of the weight of larger plants like trees.”

Often, an outdoor amenity space will complement a green roof installed to manage runoff, Shapiro said. This was the case with outdoor amenity space Shapiro Didway designed for Mill Creek Residential Trust’s 1420 Pearl Apartments in the Pearl District. The planned 290-unit, U-shaped building, designed by Portland-based SERA Architects, will have a central courtyard, two roof decks and a 24,000-square-foot eco-roof. The rooftop amenity space will include a fire table, a custom spa and enclosed seating for protection on rainy days.

“The green roof was for environmental reasons,” Shapiro said. “They have an environmental benefit and they have a visual benefit. These are people’s homes and it’s kind of like their backyards.”

Another advantage of terraces is offering a private outdoor space to apartment tenants living in tight infill developments that can’t accommodate a courtyard, Shapiro said.

“There’s not enough space to put something on the ground,” he said. “(A terrace) becomes part of the architecture.”

The post Making apartments more luxurious appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A grand opening was held last month for the newly-completed Marvel 29, a four-story, 165-unit apartment project in St. Johns from PHK Development. The Ankrom Moisan Architects-designed building is located on a full block near the eastern approach to the St. Johns Bridge and features one- and two-bedroom apartments, studios, and live/work units along with ground-floor retail space. Walsh Construction served as the project’s general contractor.

The building’s modern industrial design was intended to both draw younger renters and aesthetically appeal to longtime neighborhood residents. Developer Patrick Kessi also turned to the neighborhood for advice on names for the building before settling on Marvel 29, which serves as an homage to the St. Johns Bridge.

The post Photos: Paying homage to industrial past in St. Johns appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Walsh Construction Co. is building a mixed-use project in St. Johns near the eastern approach to the neighborhood’s iconic bridge. The four-story building, called Marvel 29, features 165 studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom or live/work units in addition to a ground-floor retail space. Work began in late summer 2013 and is slated for completion by mid-December. The project’s developer is PHK Development, and Ankrom Moisan Architects served as the designer.

The post Photos: Mixed-use project moving ahead in St. Johns appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.