Change is in the air for the Multnomah County Courthouse, and at a Thursday open house – the first of two – planners for a new structure reminded attendees that, historically, “change is the only constant” in reference to the two proposed sites.

Project team members explained the pros and cons of the preferred site and alternate site, the histories of both sites and details on project needs, timeline and funding to drop-in attendees at the open house.

After evaluations of 11 potential locations, the project team chose a preferred site – a block bounded by Southwest Jefferson and Madison streets, First Avenue and Naito Parkway – and an alternate site – bounded by Southwest Clay and Columbia streets and First and Second avenues – on which they’re now performing due diligence, including requests for public input.

“We had about 70 people visit the open house, and we’re very happy with how it went,” county spokesman Mike Pullen said. “Attendees were generally favorable about the preferred site and a lot of the people at the open house were people who are interested in working on the project.”

Photos on display of the preferred site from 1909, 1949, 1963, 1979 and present day support the planning team’s statement that change is the only constant for the site, showing that at least until 1949, there were buildings occupying the now-empty space on the block surrounding the existing Jefferson Station building and the attached building holding longtime downtown restaurant Veritable Quandary.

Pullen said the owners of both Jefferson Station and Veritable Quandary attended the open house, asking questions of project planners.

“Both parties that share the preferred site block have expressed concerns,” Pullen said. “They have both said they appreciate the information we’re providing.”

County officials will wait to address specific concerns from building and business owners near both sites until a final site decision has been made, Pullen said.

Concept plans for both sites show an L-shaped building with a ground-level sally port for prisoner transport security, one of many features that the 100-year-old existing courthouse lacks.

Among those deficiencies, the project planners identified a less-than-ideal security situation, where defendants are walked through public areas on their way to court. Additionally, the existing courthouse doesn’t meet current seismic codes, isn’t large enough to meet the county’s needs and is becoming increasingly expensive to maintain as it ages.

The new courthouse “will accommodate best practices that cannot be met in the existing building,” according to Pullen.

Amenities outlined at Thursday’s open house included an efficient, environmentally sustainable building with improved technology, adequate space with separate circulation for employees, defendants and the public.

Preliminary cost projections are between $250 million and $260 million, with funding split 50-50 between the county and the state.

One of the advantages of building on the preferred site is that Multnomah County already owns the land, which project planners estimate would save about $20 million in project costs. Other pros identified at the preferred site and outlined at the open house include its prominent downtown location at the Hawthorne bridgehead, its proximity to the Justice Center on Southwest Third Avenue, improved in-custody transport, access to an existing parking garage and a need for only minimal demolition.

Many of the identified pros of the preferred site are identified by project planners as cons at the alternate site. For example, land acquisition would increase project costs, “security concerns” would be tied to an adjacent underground garage entrance and there would be no nearby staging area.

The two sites are being evaluated for criteria such as accessibility to public transportation, safety and security, staging and construction logistics and their geotechnical and seismic attributes.

The county, at the open house, outlined a project timeline that includes site selection by early April and the issuance of a request for proposals by the end of April. By July, the county plans to choose an architect and contractor and will start with final design in August. Construction should begin in fall 2016, with project completion and move-in scheduled for early 2020.

The second open house is scheduled for Feb. 5 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in room 130 of the Multnomah County Courthouse, 1021 S.W. Fourth Ave.

An online open house with opportunity to comment will be available starting Feb. 5 and ending Feb. 23, Pullen said. To participate in the online open house, visit .

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Multnomah County officials are seeking public input as they prepare to select a site for their new courthouse. In December they identified two possible sites – one at Southwest First Avenue and Clay Street, and one at Southwest Naito Parkway and Jefferson Street – to accommodate the development.

The planning team has scheduled two open houses to answer public questions, provide information and receive suggestions from parties interested in being involved in the decision-making process.

The first open house will take place Jan. 29, from 5 to 7 p.m., in the boardroom of the Multnomah Building, 501 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. The second will take place Feb. 5, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., in the main jury room (Room 130) of the Multnomah County Courthouse, 1021 S.W. Fourth Ave.

“We want to know what does the public think of these sites – and if they have concerns about either, what are they,” county spokesman Mike Pullen said. “We also want the public to understand the history of each site, how a courthouse might fit on either and how would that work with the (bicycle, transit and vehicular) infrastructure.”

Meeting attendees will learn about the sites, project needs and goals, a timeline and possible funding options. “Concept visuals” presented will depict how each site may be developed.

The county’s technicians are performing due diligence on both sites – testing for geotechnical, environmental, land use and permitting issues, Pullen said.

In April, after the surveillance process is finished and public input has been gathered, the City Council will receive the information and make its final decision on which of the two sites is most viable.

To learn more about the project, visit .

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Redevelopment of the Centennial Mills site along the Northwest Portland waterfront may have some big-name designers and architects attached if developer Jordan Schnitzer, president of Harsch Properties, gets his wish.

Plans for the $115.8 million project call for a pedestrian bridge spanning Naito Parkway, river access, open public space, multifamily units, and retail and office space.

Last month, Schnitzer met with Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer Maya Lin to gauge her interest in designing the bridge. He recently announced that his family foundation would contribute $1 million to bridge a funding gap in Confluence, a series of six public art installations – designed by Lin – at significant points along the Columbia River system in Oregon and Washington.

Schnitzer also has been in talks with Frank Gehry, designer of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, and architect Moshe Safdie, designer of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark.

“This is a legacy project for our community,” Schnitzer said. “In 50 years I want people to look at it and say, ‘Those folks sure did the right thing for this site.’ ”

Harsch Properties is prepared to invest $77 million in the project and would like the remaining $38.8 million to come from public subsidies. Schnitzer said the project is important enough to him that he’s willing to invest more if necessary.

“It shouldn’t just be a bridge; it should be a work of art,” he said. “With our civic hat on I’m sure our family fund would be willing to contribute a significant amount of funding for some aesthetic addition to this.”

Site redevelopment has been in the works for more than a decade. In 2006 the Portland Development Commission hired Costa Mesa, Calif.-based LAB Holding to develop a culinary hub for food purveyors, but later shifted its project preference to require at least 50 percent of the development to include office space. As a result, LAB Holding aborted its project.

Patricia Gardner, president of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association‘s board, said she hopes that the planning phase will be more transparent this time around.

“(PDC officials) chased away that developer because they changed the rules,” she said. “LAB got killed behind closed doors. This time there needs to be meetings where they ask the public, ‘What do you guys want?’ ”

The PDC on Dec. 11 will discuss possible next steps for the century-old Centennial Mills site at a public meeting, PDC spokesman Shawn Uhlman said.

The PDC is waiting to make any decisions until KPFF Consulting Engineers finishes a survey of the site to determine which buildings are salvageable and which need to be razed. Uhlman said he expects the firm to report its findings during the first week of December.

“This is one of the last chances we have, as a city, to connect with our history,” Gardner said. “I’ve wondered if there’s a plot that … the building will fall down if they wait long enough.”

At the Oct. 29 PDC meeting where Schnitzer announced his firm’s preferred development plan, the commissioners talked at length about the buildings’ rapid deterioration and about the possibility of demolishing those too run-down to preserve.

“It’s like they think, ‘We own the building, so we can just start tearing down parts of it,’ ” Gardner said. “How can you do that without a true vision of what it is you’re tearing down?”

Uhlman said the PDC is hoping that KPFF will provide it with an assessment of which buildings are most at risk.

“The key piece is learning from the structural engineers how quickly we need to act,” he said. “Selective demolition could prove to be a challenge because the buildings are all sort of integrated.”

Schnitzer’s plan calls for preserving the four-story Feed Mill and the five-story Flour Mill. He said his firm has already brought KPFF staffers on site, and they determined that the 10 other existing structures are beyond repair.

“It’s a tragic circumstance,” he said. “There’s so much damage to some of the buildings that we’d be tearing them down and rebuilding them to look like they were. We’re preserving the best of the buildings … In our opinion, the cost of trying to recreate the others isn’t worth it.”

Harsch Properties spent more than a year meeting with citizens and professional firms to consider every option for the site.

“We came up with a scheme we suggested as a preferred plan,” he said. “What’s most important is that we go through a public process to meet with anyone and everyone so we can hear every voice in this community and answer every question they have.”

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Ron Paul has been entrenched in development of a public market in Portland for so long that he’s looking forward to working with Snohetta, a Norwegian architecture firm unfamiliar with the city.

Craig Dykers, Snohetta’s founding partner, and Nicolas Rader, director of the firm’s San Francisco office, this past spring toured the parking lot off of Southwest Naito Parkway, at the west end of the Morrison Bridge, where the James Beard Public Market is planned. They were invited by Paul, executive director of the Historic Portland Public Market Foundation.

“We walked the site, and (Dykers) and Nic Rader were just enchanted,” he said. “(For a Portland resident,) it fades into the background. But for someone coming into the city for the first time, it piques you in a different way. It was really electric.”

This month, Snohetta officially signed on as lead architect and landscape architect for the James Beard Public Market – named for the late chef, cookbook author, syndicated columnist and television personality who was born in Portland. To kick off design work, the firm next month will host a design forum for project stakeholders and a community open house to gather public feedback.

Paul, who has been working for 14 years to make the year-round, indoor-outdoor public market a reality, said he greatly appreciates efforts to date of local design firms SERA Architects, Studio Jeffreys and Mayer/Reed; he said they will continue to contribute to the project. Snohetta will bring an extra edge, he said. The firm has worked on a number of high-profile projects involving public space, including the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet opera house in Oslo. In New York, the firm designed a reconstruction of Times Square and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum pavilion.

“The coming together is really about honoring and celebrating what the local team has accomplished (and) now bringing in fresh, talented eyes,” Paul said. “We’ve gone from vision to concept and now we move into design.”

The initial design stages will involve extensive public outreach, especially because Snohetta staffers are new to work in Portland, Rader said.

“Of course Portland is a very unique market,” he said. “It’s very important to understand the culture. What attracted us to this was the opportunity to have a positive impact on the public space in Portland. It makes people aware of Portland as a place and the importance of their food and architecture.”

Early concepts created by SERA Architects call for an outdoor plaza between two indoor market halls totaling 93,000 square feet with more than 100 stalls for food, beverages and flowers, a teaching kitchen and an event venue. Snohetta staffers will use input from the upcoming community open house to further refine those plans.

“We’re able to bring that public nature beyond Portland while also tapping into the public knowledge,” Rader said. “We’re approaching this process all ears. We’re interested in people’s stories on how they hope to use the market. We’re really there to be a sponge and take in all the information and figuring out what this market wants to be.”

The community open house is the start of a larger public engagement effort as design moves forward, Paul said.

“The aggregate of successful market experiences that we can have anywhere in the world is what we want people to experience,” he said. “That’s the magic that Snohetta brings is crystallizing those experiences and translating it into a design where form and function are so closely fused that most visitors will think the market has been there forever.”

Rader said he’s not intimidated by the challenging project site, which is dominated by car ramps connecting to the Morrison Bridge. The curved ramps frame two clover leaf-shaped market sites. Snohetta, for both the Times Square and the Sept. 11 memorial projects, navigated complex urban sites to ensure traffic flow for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists while synthesizing the needs of numerous stakeholders, he said.

“From a site complexity standpoint, we have a lot of work with nearly impossible sites,” he said.

When Paul travels, one of the first places he visits is a public market because the spaces often serve as community hubs; however, Portland lacks such an asset. He knows exactly what he wants to experience when he walks into the James Beard Public Market.

“I can’t visualize what I want it to look like, but I can taste, smell, hear what I want it to be,” he said.

Construction of the James Beard Public Market is anticipated to start in fall 2016. A grand opening is scheduled for spring 2018.

James Beard Public Market

Anticipated construction start date: fall 2016

Anticipated construction completion date: spring 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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If you go …

What: James Beard Public Market community open house

When: Dec. 13 from 2 to 5 p.m. (Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and the project architects will give a brief presentation at 2:30 p.m.)

Where: Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, 1945 S.E. Water Ave.

RSVP:

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The redevelopment plan for Centennial Mills, in Northwest Portland, calls for creating open space, capturing history and establishing a focal point for the waterfront.

Jordan Schnitzer, president of Harsch Properties, on Wednesday introduced the Portland Development Commission to his team’s preferred plan for redevelopment of the 4.75-acre site into 120,000 square feet of multifamily units, 80,000 square feet of office space and 24,000 square feet of retail space. Of that total, 50,000 square feet would be rehabilitated space in the only two salvageable buildings.

“The good thing about this is no one has a monopoly on what happens,” Schnitzer said. “We want input from everybody.”

The development team considered several options – ranging from clearing the whole site and leaving it open space ($18 million) to restoring additional structures, and building an arena and other amenities ($207 million). Schnitzer’s team said its $115.8 million “preferred plan” includes the best of all ideas.

Harsch Properties is proposing to cover $77 million, and rely on public subsidies totaling $38.8 million.

Schnitzer’s team envisions a common area and a covered events center similar to downtown’s Director Park, a pedestrian greenway along the water, a pedestrian bridge over Naito Parkway and a dock that allows access to the river and moorage for boats. The result would be a “lyrical, fluid” waterfront, Schnitzer said.

“How we came up with the events center is we were thinking: Why are people going to be coming down here?” he said. “With the success (Portland Parks & Recreation) has had with Director Park … it shows that there’s a thirst from people who want to come to events that are covered.”

Schnitzer described a glass-covered area where people could attend summer evening movies, car shows or other events.

“We wanted to evoke the design of the wharf buildings that are no longer going to be able to be preserved in the line of the events center,” he said.

Just two of the existing 12 buildings are in a condition that allows for preservation, Schnitzer said. The Flour Mill Building would be incorporated into a new office and retail space. The Feed Mill Building would be converted into a restaurant with a “family price point.”

“A restaurant where people could drive up in their boats to come,” he said. “It would get that area activated.”

Schnitzer outlined a building schedule that calls for the design and permitting process to continue into early 2016, with construction beginning in the second quarter of 2016 and finishing in the third quarter of 2018.

But Schnitzer and the PDC seemed to agree that reactivating a 100-plus-year-old former mill site that has sat vacant for more than a decade will require some immediate repairs.

“Having walked through it today and having walked through (it) two and three years ago, I was really struck by the deterioration,” Commissioner John Mohlis said. “I have some concern about waiting until 2016, just from a public safety perspective, because it’s pretty shocking what’s happened over the last few years.”

The roof of the Flour Mill has partially collapsed, the roof of the Feed Mill has localized areas of damage, and many wharf pilings are completely rotten.

“There’s got to be some way we could go to the City Council and get a declaration of emergency,” Schnitzer said. “Because if half that building falls into the water it’s not going to be good for any of us.”

On a site tour – hard hats and flashlights required – on Friday, the deterioration was evident: visibly listing support beams, gaping holes in the ceiling and standing water pooled on the concrete first floor of the six-story Flour Mill.

“I was just here (three days ago) and already I can see changes since then,” said Susanne Orton, vice president of marketing and communications for Harsch Properties.

The PDC didn’t make any decisions at Wednesday’s work session, but agreed that something needs to be done to stop deterioration, salvage what can be saved and keep the project from becoming more complicated by starting demolition as soon as possible.

The next step, Orton said, will be to hold public meetings to get feedback on what people want to see on the site and how much they want to spent on development. No meetings have been scheduled yet.

(Click here to view photos from a recent hardhat tour of Centennial Mills)

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