More work must still be done on the RiverPlace Central City master plan; however, most of that work involves final details.

The master plan, proposed by GBD Architects on behalf of site owner NBP Capital, calls for redevelopment of the 8-acre site in Portland between South Montgomery Street, River Parkway, Harbor Way and River Drive. During a review hearing on Thursday, Portland Design Commission members, city staffers and GBD Architects designers continued to discuss details and lingering issues.

At full build-out, the site could accommodate thousands of new residential units, substantial office space, a possible hotel, as many as six high-rise buildings, and 70,000 square feet of new open space. And a future regional destination – potentially a grocery store, food hall or entertainment venue – also is in the plan, GBD Architects principal Agustin Enriquez said.

Allowable building heights for the site range from 150 to 325 feet.

The plan is to build out the development in two phases, starting with Block 1 (70,763 square feet), Enriquez said. Then development of the other blocks would follow with the hope that Block 6 (the future park) could meet one of the blocks’ development requirements.

Many lingering issues brought up Thursday involved the building code language. A near snafu occurred when city planner Grace Jeffreys pointed out that shadow studies would not be required for individual buildings’ future design review hearings based on the current code language. This meant that the building massing conceptualized by GBD Architects for the shadow study would have to stay.

“I don’t think it’s practical to say that the massing that is shown at this stage is the massing that will be there in the future,” Enriquez said.

The Bureau of Development Services agreed to pause the conversation for GBD Architects to come up with stricter language on the shadow study requirements for developments within the master plan.

Another code language issue involved the Block 1 development and open space requirements. As proposed Thursday, the percentage of bicycle and pedestrian pathway allowed was too high. Concerns were raised by design commissioners and city staffers that if phase one is the beginning and the end to the RiverPlace master plan, then it wouldn’t meet code.

Design commissioners opted to allow the proposed design to stay in hope that the full master plan’s vision could come to fruition.

Since more details are still needed, a second hearing has been scheduled for the RiverPlace master plan in three weeks.

The post Master plan being refined for Portland acreage appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

An apartment complex in Gresham has sold for $38.5 million.

The buyer was an affiliate of Abacus Capital Group, a New York-based real estate investment firm. The seller was NBP Capital, a developer and real estate investment company based in Portland and Los Angeles.

The Groves has 201 housing units in one-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans. The sale equates to $191,542 per unit.

For Abacus, it was the second Portland-area property purchase. Abacus also owns Alden Apartment Homes in Tualatin.

JLL Capital Markets represented the seller.

“This is another example of ample investor appetite for well-located, suburban assets with a value-add component,” Senior Managing Director Ira Virden stated in a news release. “The Groves is an asset with tremendous growth potential, in large part due to the immediate market’s apartment fundamentals, which exhibited over 3 percent rent growth during COVID-19, in a submarket with very little new supply and direct access to growing employment drivers.”

In addition to Virden, Senior Director Carrie Kahn and Associate Frank Solorzano were members of the JLL Capital Markets team that represented the seller.

The Groves, at 3500 N.E. 17th St., offers amenities including a swimming pool, a fitness center and a playground.

The post Gresham multifamily property changes hands appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Multifamily production fell 5.2 percent in Portland in 2019 as developers reacted to rising costs and a flood of project deliveries by pulling back.

The Bureau of Development Services issued permits for projects comprising 4,634 multifamily units last year. That was down from 4,887 permitted units in 2018.

“I think it’s going to slow down even more,” said Sam Rodriguez, senior managing director at Mill Creek Residential Trust, a major multifamily developer in the city. “The deals have gotten thinner. Cost has gone up. Construction costs are escalating across the board at about 5 percent a year, and then rents have flattened. And there’s still concessions in the market.”

Multifamily housing production has fallen far from 2017’s high mark of 5,993 units permitted. That year, developers racing to get ahead of inclusionary housing requirements pushed projects across the finish line at a clip that was an astonishing 44.4 percent gain from the prior year.

That boom in housing production continues to echo, with new buildings stabilizing slowly and competition for tenants holding the lid on rents.

While lower, 2019’s housing production rate was in line with the years prior to 2017.

The Bureau of Development Services does not regularly publish permit data totals. The city agency released the numbers in response to a 91��Ƶ public records request.

The multifamily market has bifurcated since inclusionary housing requirements took effect on Feb. 1, 2017, according to developers and permits. More small multifamily projects are moving ahead with fewer than the 20 units that trigger inclusionary housing requirements. Weekly permit intakes released by BDS are replete with 19-unit building proposals.

Other projects that are moving ahead tend to be large: full-block or superblock developments such as Security Properties‘ Pepsi Blocks and Press Blocks projects, and NBP Capital‘s RiverPlace development. Conspicuously missing are the midsize projects that characterized multifamily development before 2017.

“It’s a pretty difficult environment,” said Gus Baum, director of development for Security Properties. “Construction pricing continues to be unpredictable, but high.”

Within weeks, Security Properties is planning to seek permits for Pepsi Blocks’ first phase, Baum said. The first phase includes an approximately 200-unit multifamily building and construction of a woonerf, a shared street through the property at Northeast Sandy Boulevard and 25th Avenue.

Security Properties is phasing the project to allow the bulk of market-rate units to hit the market later.

“The Pepsi Blocks, because it’s a planned development, we’ll hopefully do a greater than minimum share of affordable units in the first phase,” Baum said.

Funding for affordable housing is washing over the housing market in the wake of the city’s $258.4 million housing bond and Metro‘s $652.8 million bond.

“There’s a lot of money for affordable projects because of the bonds, and that’s taking away resources for market-rate projects,” Baum said.

For now, flat rents and steadily escalating costs give little reason to expect a turnaround in Portland multifamily development, developers said.

“It’s still a pretty soft market to be delivering product,” said Chris Nelson, co-founder of Capstone Partners, a Portland-based developer.

After years of steep increases, rents in Portland have flatlined, making multifamily development less enticing. Average rent for a two-bedroom Portland apartment was down 0.1 percent in February compared to a year ago to $1,330, according to an Apartment List report.

Rents nationally grew 1.7 percent during the same period, led by Phoenix (3.5 percent), Austin, Texas, (3.4 percent) and Charlotte, North Carolina (2.5), Apartment List reported.

Developers have reacted by diversifying their portfolios by product type and geography. Capstone is one developer that has looked to the suburbs, building a multifamily project in downtown Tigard.

Tigard and Beaverton have worked to attract developers including Capstone and Rembold Properties to bring urban-style projects to the suburbs.

“It’s been a strategic focus of those municipalities to activate their urban cores, and part of that is bringing households to the urban cores,” Nelson said.

Otherwise, Capstone has largely stepped back from multifamily development, instead building industrial facilities for Amazon and other users, and some office spaces.

Policymakers and developers are evaluating the city’s inclusionary housing policy. In the past three years, the city has permitted or is in process to permit at least 601 units from 91 projects. The City Council softened certain requirements, but developers have called for further changes.

Other regulations have added costs, developers said. A requirement for bird-safe window glazing in the Central City has dented project pro formas. For one Mill Creek project, the cost for the window package almost doubled, from $500,000 to $900,000, because of bird-safe glazing, Rodriguez said.

“Things like that are just making it more difficult,” he said.

Portland multifamily permits

Apartments/condominiums in projects with three or more units

2019: 4,634

2018: 4,887

2017: 5,993

2016: 4,149

2015: 4,582

2014: 4,344

2013: 2,763

2012: 1,835

2011: 900

2010: 638

Source: Bureau of Development Services

The post Costs escalating for multifamily development appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The team proposing a core-and-shell renovation of the historic Multnomah County Courthouse still has hurdles to cross before it can gain the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission‘s approval.

Historic landmarks commissioners and city staff discussed the project at a three-hour hearing on Monday. They related concerns with transportation impacts and loading on Southwest Salmon Street, removal of some historic materials from the building and changes to lighting, and the placement and size of doors and windows.

GBD Architects is charged with designing a conversion of the full-block brick masonry building completed in 1914 into a modern office space for Portland-based NBP Capital. The 300,000-square-foot courthouse, at 1021 S.W. Fourth Ave., once housed prisoners and is familiar to many Portlanders who have paid traffic tickets and settled legal matters there for generations.

The building on the downtown Park Blocks is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, so proposed changes must also win approval from the National Park Service and State Historic Preservation Office to secure needed tax credits.

NBP Capital purchased the courthouse from the county in November 2018 for $28 million. After considering a hotel use, NBP has opted to bet on Portland’s rapidly expanding office market as tech firms jockey to lease attractive urban workplaces.

Traffic impacts loom large for the proposal. GBD is engaged in ongoing discussions with the Portland Bureau of Transportation regarding loading from Salmon Street and related issues.

“We were hoping we’d be able to come in here with the transportation things resolved,” said Agustin Enriquez, a GBD design director. “We’re not quite there yet.”

A PBOT representative said the agency needs more information from the project team.

“We don’t know much about the proposal yet,” PBOT’s Tammy Borden-King said.

As designed, trucks would back into the building’s single loading area, at times blocking both traffic lanes on Salmon Street. PBOT requested the applicant consider moving the loading to Southwest Main Street on the building’s south elevation.

“We asked them to study both,” Borden-King said. “They declined to do that; they only studied Salmon.”

The loading is needed to supply a ground-floor restaurant, and to provide trash and recycling services, Enriquez said.

GBD has abandoned plans for parking at the building.

The building’s central courtyard – sort of a donut hole in the center of the square exterior – will enable a contractor to perform a seismic upgrade with minimal disturbance to the structure, Enriquez said.

“We don’t have to remove a lot of material in the center of the building to seismically upgrade a very heavy masonry building,” he said. “That allows the building to be upgraded without really having to gut the inside.”

GBD proposes to convert old jail cells on the penthouse level into transparent office space with substantial window coverage. That portion of the existing structure is made of hollow clay tile. That material is not historically important, commissioners said, adding they were open to granting more leeway at the penthouse level.

Chairwoman Kristen Minor said the height of the penthouse level could be an issue for pedestrians and observers from other downtown buildings.

“I have a little concern that now we’re creating a wedding cake,” she said.

The project previously came before the Historic Landmarks Commission for a design advice hearing on Sept. 9, 2019, and a land use review hearing on Oct. 25, 2019. The project is tentatively scheduled to return on March 23.

Enriquez said the project team should be able to satisfy the commission’s objections.

“I think we could solve all these things,” he said.

The post Courthouse transformation facing design hurdles appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A plan for a massive and wide-ranging mixed-use neighborhood near the Willamette River in downtown Portland continues to progress, though issues surrounding transportation and massing linger along with opposition from residents concerned about displacement and density.

During a second design advice hearing Thursday for the master plan of NBP Capital‘s planned redevelopment of the RiverPlace area, Portland Design Commission members, city staff and GBD Architects designers fleshed out the details of the 8-acre site.

The project would include thousands of new residential units, a possible hotel, commercial space and public open spaces between as many as six new high-rise buildings. GBD is working with Kengo Kuma and Associates, an internationally renowned Japanese architecture firm, to design the immense project.

Changes from an initial design advice hearing held in October include shifting a large public plaza from a stepped design to one that has more space at-grade, and an updated open space configuration from a single space that continues through the development to a series of smaller, “discovered” spaces scattered throughout. The proposed programming has also evolved.

“Frankly, there are just a lot more housing options,” said Agustin Enriquez, a principal with GBD Architects.

Enriquez said he envisions a “broad mix” of housing totaling upward of 1,800 units across multiple buildings. One hundred units would be condominiums, he said, with market-rate apartments and at least 20 percent affordable units, as required by the city’s inclusionary housing requirements. A senior living facility is also envisioned for at least one of the several towers on the site, along with a 219-room hotel, 250,000 square feet of office space up to 100,000 square feet of retail space. Parking for up to 1,600 vehicles in mostly below-grade space could also be included.

Allowable building heights in the 8-acre master plan area range from 150 to 325 feet.

Multimodal connectivity throughout the site remains an issue, as do building massing and the final composition of open spaces, according to a Bureau of Development Services staff report presented Thursday. Concerns persist about a possible block measuring 200 feet by 460 feet, which would likely be the site of as many as four towers. Such an unusually long block could interfere with other street and pedestrian connections, as well as a popular multi-use bike path.

“It’s used by many people,” BDS Planner Grace Jeffries told commissioners during Thursday’s hearing. “It’s not just a blank wall. At grade, that is a used area and staff is concerned about a really long site with no access through it.”

The proposed length of the block is significantly shorter than the initially proposed length of about 725 feet.

“Sending Hall (Street) through to split up the giant block was good,” said Commissioner Chandra Robinson. “We’re really happy to see Hall Street go through with a connection to Harbor Way.”

A potential pedestrian bridge stretching over Southwest Harbor Drive to connect the development with downtown would have to be considered separately from a future land use application for the RiverPlace master plan, Jeffries said. This leaves an open question going forward.

“It’s not clear whether these spaces will be public if the bridge is not part of the proposal,” she said.

Commissioners also noted that a completed traffic study of the affected streets is needed before it will be possible to judge the potential impact of the development. In addition, the intersection of Southwest Hall Street and Harbor Drive will likely need to be revamped to handle additional traffic.

“That is something we absolutely feel is necessary,” said Commissioner Zari Santner.

Enriquez also told commissioners that a plan for the “Portland Steps,” a series of cascading plates totaling over 35,000 square feet and organized into the primary pedestrian open space, will incorporate a much greater amount of at-grade space than before while still allowing for a possible bridge connection to a podium above.

“We’re trying to find the types of uses that on the podium don’t require a lot of foot traffic to succeed,” Enriquez said.

None of that helped assuage concerns of local residents, many of whom would be displaced or impacted by the proposed development. Thirty-six of them signed up Thursday to offer their testimony.

“Some of the most concerning issues have not been addressed in the revised plan,” said Carolyn Whitney, a resident of The Strand condominiums, which border the site. “We believe the density on this limited site, it’s like a tiny island between the river and the freeway with limited infrastructure, and we fear the significance of this has been underestimated.”

Other concerns raised by testimony included questions about the development’s phasing, its connection with existing infrastructure and transportation networks and the impact on local residents.

“People on a medium income have a very difficult time finding rentals here,” said local resident Jan Campbell. “So please think very carefully about how you’re going to impact the lives of people living here. I am not advocating against development, I am advocating against displacement.”

The post RiverPlace redevelopment plan continues to evolve appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A large multifamily development proposed for the Kerns neighborhood needs additional design work before it can proceed.

Though the Hacker-designed Dairy Apartments received a design review hearing on Thursday, the Portland Design Commission declined to even vote whether to approve the project.

As proposed, the seven-story, 271-unit building would be constructed on a 0.92-acre site – the former home of Sunshine Dairy – between Northeast 20th and 21st avenues and Pacific and Oregon streets. The site is a block south of Interstate 84 and three blocks north of Sandy Boulevard. Plans call for ground-floor retail space and residential units slightly above grade.

On Thursday, the same issue that was raised during a design advice hearing this past summer came up again.

“My primary concern is the height of the stoops,” Commissioner Zari Santner said. “I encourage you to look into reducing the six-foot stoop down to four-feet-five inches or even four-feet-eight.”

The question of stoops for the ground-floor apartments and their impact on the public realm is one of the largest outstanding issues for designers to resolve. By contract, design commissioners praised other project aspects, including the use of weathering steel paneling on the exterior, as well as the massing.

“The massing is fantastic – it’s great, it’s courageous and it does frame the Telegraph Building, which is a landmark in that neighborhood,” Commissioner Sam Rodriguez said.

Eastbank, an affiliate of property owner NBP Capital, is developing the project. NBP Capital purchased the site and adjacent property in February for $8.1 million.

A single-level, full-block, underground parking garage is proposed, with access from Northeast Oregon Street to the south. Two loading spaces would also be provided at the parking garage level.

Several other adjustments have been requested by the Hacker team, including reduction of total vehicular parking required from 240 to 90; reduction of window area on the ground floor; increase of façade articulation; and reduction of spacing of long-term bike racks on site to allow planting areas between the sidewalk and the street.

Parking may be the stickiest of those issues. City code requires multifamily developments not in close proximity to public transit to provide roughly a one-to-one ratio of parking spaces to units. In this case, however, the building would be just one block away from meeting the definition of “close proximity,” and applicants wish to house all vehicle parking in a single-level parking garage. Many neighbors oppose this plan, and several of them wrote letters to the Design Commission expressing their concerns. One other individual testified during Thursday’s hearing.

“It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful building, but my major concern is the reduced parking,” said Scott Eckelman, who owns a business less than a block away from the development site.

The project team is now scheduled to return before the Design Commission at a hearing on Dec. 19.

The post No green light yet for Dairy Apartments appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

NBP Capital‘s ambitious plans for a mixed-use neighborhood in the RiverPlace area in Portland will have to overcome issues with the site and transportation challenges, in addition to complaints from hundreds of current residents who would be displaced.

The Portland developer proposes for the 8-acre site near the South Waterfront District a series of towers that would have thousands of new housing units, perhaps a hotel, retail shops and public spaces. The Portland Design Commission held a design advice request hearing on Thursday.

GBD Architects of Portland is working with Kengo Kuma and Associates, a well-regarded Japanese architecture firm on designs for the massive project. A Central City master plan is required.

NBP Capital’s plans would result in the demolition of existing buildings, including The Douglas apartments and townhomes. Dozens of residents overflowed the hearing room to give their thoughts on the project.

Much of the public testimony was organized by the Portland Downtown Neighborhood Association and residents of the Strand condos on River Drive, which border the development site.

Agustin Enriquez, a GBD Architects principal, presented plans for the site, including a Kengo Kuma concept for what’s called the Portland Steps. Renderings show a cascading series of horizontal plates organized in a 35,000-square-foot public square planted with native vegetation. Retail shops would be incorporated into the steps.

“We envision retail being in, around and actually within these Portland Steps,” Enriquez said.

The images were “obviously very early and conceptual,” he added.

Kuma’s involvement sparked buzz about the project when it began circulating at City Hall months ago. The architect responsible for the new National Stadium in Tokyo previously worked on an expansion of the Portland Japanese Garden and an interior redesign of Shizuku, a downtown Portland restaurant.

RiverPlace’s development program is not yet set and will depend on the arrangement of blocks within the site, architects and planners said. A hotel is being considered at the site’s northwest corner, Enriquez said. Multifamily development is also likely. Overall, four towers and open space are planned.

Maximum allowable building heights on the site range from 150 feet to 325 feet.

A block on the western side of the site would be 300 feet by 725 feet – more than five times the typical Portland block size – sparking staff concerns. Designers must also contend with view corridors, including one from Terwilliger Boulevard to the Willamette River that shows Mount St. Helens.

A pedestrian bridge being considered would stretch over Harbor Drive and link RiverPlace to downtown, according to the applicant’s presentation.

Neighbors were critical of plans. Phil Gilbertson, who lives a few blocks west of the proposed development, said the project would not integrate well with downtown.

“The problem is that the boxed-in building site is not reasonably accessible to downtown to the west,” he said. “RiverPlace, as proposed, has its back turned to downtown.”

Gilbertson also criticized the Portland Steps.

“The grand staircase is more of a grand impediment,” he said.

NBP Capital is a Portland-based firm backed by Los Angeles billionaire Nicolas Berggruen. It has been among the busiest real estate development and investment firms in post-recession Portland, buying the historic Multnomah County Courthouse for office redevelopment and the Sunshine Dairy site for a major mixed-use project. NBP Capital has also recently created the Woodlark Hotel via renovation in partnership with Gordon Sondland’s Provenance Hotels and Arthur Mutal, and constructed a full-block apartment building in Sellwood-Westmoreland.

The post Southwest Portland proposal receives attention appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

GBD Architects‘ plans for a thorough core and shell renovation of the historic Multnomah County Courthouse may not be able to include punching new vehicle access points into the building.

The project team plans to convert the seven-story building into primarily office space, with some retail use – possibly a restaurant – on the ground floor. But plans require approval from the Historic Landmarks Commission, which offered its initial design advice at a hearing on Monday.

GBD is designing the project on behalf of NBP Capital. The Portland developer purchased the 275,000-square-foot courthouse from the county in November 2018 for $28 million. An early plan for adaptive reuse has gone by the wayside.

“A hotel is no longer planned,” said Agustin Enriquez, a GBD Architects principal who is leading the design team.

The courthouse, located between Salmon and Main streets and Fourth and Fifth avenues, was built in two phases, in 1909 and 1914, with a design by Whidden and Lewis, according to a Bureau of Development Services staff report. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Commissioners were generally complimentary of GBD’s plans, but expressed reservations about some proposed changes to the structure – most notably two new vehicle entrances that would require curb cuts.

“I have some real problems with creating these new vehicular access points,” Commission Chairwoman Kristen Minor said. “I’m concerned with changing buildings enough so they can be used – that’s how we keep old buildings – but I am equally concerned with creating a poor pedestrian environment.”

Architects said the building will need vehicle access points for loading, including for the potential ground-floor restaurant. The entries are proposed along Salmon Street on the north elevation.

Ashley Koger, a GBD senior associate, pointed to other historic Portland buildings with modern curb cuts, including the Galleria Building, which has vehicle access along Alder Street for Target loading, and the former Meier and Frank Delivery Depot building that is now leased by Vestas. However, Minor was not persuaded.

“I am not convinced that you need vehicle access,” she said.

Seeking common ground, Minor floated the possibility of approving one, narrow vehicle entrance. Koger said the Portland Bureau of Transportation would be unlikely to approve a vehicle entrance narrower than about 20 feet. That was too sizable for the commissioners.

“I don’t think I’d be able to support a 20-foot-wide opening on this building,” Minor said. “It would stick out like a sore thumb.”

Commissioner Andrew Smith agreed.

“It’s hard to imagine how it would get done successfully, so I sort of echo that,” he said.

GBD Architects plans to add numerous windows to the penthouse that was once a jail.

“There’s not many windows on the top floor,” Enriquez said.

A 10-foot parapet that blocked prisoners’ views of freedom has been largely removed, but a portion remains.

“It was originally meant to be for prisoners, and we want it to be a great home for office workers for 100 years or more,” Koger said.

No additional height is being requested; the building will remain at 113 feet, 9 inches.

The project team is requesting to build new entrances. A sealed pedestrian entrance along Fifth Avenue would be reintroduced. Also, on the south elevation facing Main Street, an entrance would be built where a Sheriff’s Office entryway once stood.

“We are super excited to be working on this project,” Enriquez said. “It’s one of the few full-block national landmarks in the city. There are others, but not a lot of them.”

While GBD is working on the historic courthouse, the new, $324.5 million Multnomah County Central Courthouse is under construction near the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge. Hoffman Construction is serving as the general contractor; SRG Partnership provided the design. The 17-story building is slated to open midsummer 2020.

The post Plans continuing to form for historic structure appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

NBP Capital has hired Ethos Commercial Advisors to lease out the Portland firm’s portfolio of six historic office buildings in downtown and Old Town Chinatown.

The portfolio totals 263,446 rentable square feet, and consists of three downtown buildings (the New Market Theater, the George Lawrence Building and the Stevens building) and three Old Town Chinatown buildings (the Merchant Hotel, Norton House and Captain Couch).

Ethos is led by managing partner Josh Bean. The leasing office was already representing Ankeny + Ash Creative, which NBP Capital purchased in January.

“Ethos is doing a tremendous job driving tenant traffic to Ankeny + Ash, and we are confident that they have the skill and marketing power to bring great companies to our downtown buildings,” NBP Capital stated in a news release.

NBP Capital assembled the portfolio during the past seven years. The investment and development firm has grown dramatically during the economic expansion, developing the 232-unit Meetinghouse apartment building in Sellwood and the 84-unit East of Eleven building in the Buckman neighborhood, among other projects. The firm also purchased the old Multnomah County Courthouse for $28 million, with an adaptive reuse commercial renovation on tap for 2020.

NBP Capital also is in an early planning stage for the RiverPlace development that could involve 1,200 multifamily units.

The post Firm secures leasing agency for office portfolio appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland Design Commission last week offered nearly unanimous praise during a design advice hearing for a full-block apartment building that would replace a former Sunshine Dairy facility in Northeast Portland. Criticism was fairly specific in scope and was limited to a few nuances.

The Dairy Apartments are being designed by Hacker Architects for developer Eastbank, an affiliate of owner NBP Capital, which acquired the site and adjacent properties earlier this year for $8.1 million. The building would contain six floors of apartments over one level of below-grade parking. The 244 apartments units would have floorplans ranging from studios to three bedrooms, and ten affordable units would be included in accordance with inclusionary housing requirements.

The building consists of two seemingly separate towers connected at the ground floor. Ground-level apartments will feature a raised stoop that separates balconies from the sidewalk.

“It’s really well thought out,” Commissioner Zari Santner said. “This is modern, but it is borrowing from the vocabulary of nature as well as some of the industrial past.”

Commissioners were united in at least one criticism, which concerned the ground-level stoop. As proposed, the balcony would sit over 5 feet above the sidewalk, which commissioners said would create an unpleasant pedestrian experience. Commissioner Jessica Molinar described the ground floor as feeling like a “fortress” and said she has seen similar stoops in the Pearl District which didn’t work well for pedestrians.

Commissioner Brian McCarter said the proposed 5-foot-6-inch height is too much, but said a height between 2 and 3 feet would be effective.

Chairwoman Julie Livingston was more pointed in her critique, bringing attention to a lack of canopies or cover on the building’s sides, which are needed to keep pedestrians dry. She emphasized that it’s important to shield not only residents and visitors, but also people that are simply walking by.

Her main focus was on the building’s similarity to another Hacker-designed project, the TwentyTwenty Condominiums, which are located less than a quarter mile north on 21^st Avenue.

“I think you need more generations in between the TwentyTwenty and this,” Livingston said. “This needs to be the 5.0 or the 6.0.”

With two similar buildings so close together, Livingston said she worried about setting a precedent for the neighborhood’s style.

While the old dairy building itself will be demolished to make way for the apartments, the design team plans to preserve an old telegraph building and antenna tower at the north end of the site, which it said has an iconic presence in Portland.

Located on Northeast 21^st Avenue, the Dairy Apartments are the latest addition to a spate of recent development near the Sandy Boulevard corridor. The site is expected to become part of a designated pedestrian district by the end of the year, and a future bus route is expected to run by the building, although funding has not yet been secured and those plans could be at least five years out.

The project will return before the commission for a design review hearing at a date yet to be set.

The post Apartment proposal received warmly appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.