The Portland Design Commission has approved, with modifications, the design of RiverPlace Block 1 South — a new 30-story multifamily tower on the former RiverPlace Athletic Club site, at 150 S. Montgomery St.

This development will be Phase 1 for the RiverPlace site. The proposal includes about 344 residential units with parking provided by utilizing unused spaces in the adjacent Douglas Apartments garage. The property is an 8.03-acre site located within the University District/South Downtown subdistrict of the Central City Plan District. The site is bounded by South Harbor Way/South Harbor Way Bike Path at the west, South Montgomery Street at the north, South River Drive at the east, and South River Parkway at the south.

The proposal also includes 16,610 square feet of new public open area to be provided in two locations: in the middle of Block 1 and at the southern end of Block 1. These two open areas will provide public links from the Harbor Drive Trail on the west of the property to the new Street ‘A,’ as well as publicly accessible landscaped open space.

GBD Architects is the architect, and the owner of the project is NBP 0150 S Montgomery LLC. The project is valued at $82 million.

The Central City Master Plan was approved for the site.

Lead designer of the project, Michael Marcus of GBD, said three more translucent windows were added to the façade. A garage connection will connect to the north podium wall for a future parking garage.

“We’re proposing two glass types at this point,” Marcus said of the windows. “Going through pricing efforts on this project, glazing, among other things, is widely higher than expected.”

GBD is proposing similar glass from two different manufacturers: Solarban 70 and Guardian SNX 62/27.

“Both of these have a very low reflectance,” Marcus said. “They are very low in the reflective nature of the glass.”

Marcus said the two glass types are very similar to what GBD has proposed in the past.

GBD is also proposing patterned metal panels on the podium. The panels would stack vertically and alternate in thickness.

Mike Zilis, of GBD, said there will be a landing at the top of the stairway of the north pedestrian access and open area. All the trees will have a minimum of 48 inches in depth.

Five modifications were accepted by the project team: A request to allow an increased floor plate size from the allowed maximum 10,000 square feet to 12,500 square feet above 100′ in height; a request to modify ‘north-south’ from cardinal north-south to being 90 degrees perpendicular to the eastern and westerly street grids west of the site; a request to reduce the ground-floor window requirements from at least 40 percent to 26 percent of the ground level wall areas for the north elevation; a request to reduce the ground floor requirements from at least 40 percent to 21 percent of the ground level wall areas for the south elevation; and a request to reduce the eco-roof coverage from 60 percent to 58 percent.

The following conditions, recommended by staff, were approved by the commissioners: On the north ground level façade, nighttime lighting shall be provided to the five translucent windows; the future building to the north shall meet or exceed ground floor window requirements facing the mid-block open area; the future building to the north shall provide at least one entrance into an active space such as a lobby or a common area facing the mid-block Pedestrian Accessway open area; and a minimum of 4 feet clearance shall be provided from the top of the grade for all landscaped portions of the pedestrian accessway to the top of the structure below.

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