Plans for extending the North Park Blocks as a Green Loop connection came under scrutiny by the Portland Design Commission on Thursday.

Commissioners held a design advice meeting for the planned parks infrastructure as a condition of the Broadway master plan, a 2019 document that governs portions of the area in Northwest Portland.

The project encompasses Northwest Glisan to Johnston streets, east of Northwest Park Avenue. City planners envision a winding, elevated path for bicyclists and pedestrians to connect the North Park Blocks to the Broadway Bridge.

The North Park Blocks would carry the Green Loop — a pedestrian-friendly and bicyclist-friendly route that will encircle the Central City.

Yet the project isn’t expected to be built for years, and the discussion Thursday was hobbled by unanswered questions regarding timing, sequencing and the feasibility of building and maintaining a linear park in the troubled Old Town Chinatown neighborhood.

Gary Datka, a Portland Parks & Recreation project manager, said construction would begin sometime after 2030.

“We would expect somewhere between 2030 and 2035 this gets developed,” he said.

That raised the question of how the parks bureau should manage the area in the meantime. The properties are owned by Prosper Portland and not yet managed by Parks & Recreation.

Some of the parcels are likely to be used for laying down construction equipment, Datka said, so it doesn’t make sense to build park infrastructure before private development occurs, only for it to be damaged by construction activities later.

Portland Parks & Recreation “doesn’t want to build a bridge to nowhere in the interim,” he said.

Commissioners suggested some sort of interim park use would be appropriate.

“It really has to be an interim park,” Chairwoman Chandra Robinson said.

Commissioner Zari Santner cautioned that Parks & Recreation must prepare now to maintain the linear park before it’s built.

Santner suggested a public-private partnership could be used to maintain the area.

“That is something very, very fundamental that the parks bureau needs to address at this time,” she said.

The bureau “has never had the funding to take care of urban parks,” Santner said.

The design itself, from Portland landscape architecture firm PLACE, drew praise and concerns.

“The ascent, the massing, for me it works,” Santner said.

She criticized other aspects of the design, saying railings play too large a role and compete with tree plantings.

Designers heard from community members that the path design should provide adequate separation between pedestrians and bicyclists. The design accomplishes that with dividers, planters and other cues, PLACE designer Miguel Camacho-Serna said.

The ascending pathway will create room for a roughly 4,000-square-foot retail space underneath, Camacho-Serna said.

Commissioners urged designers and city staff to find ways to make the park work.

“There’s so much beautiful space for passive enjoyment, but the space for active enjoyment is maybe a little bit missing,” said Commissioner Sarah Vaz, who suggested food carts or small shops could help.

“It depends on how it’s going to be programmed and what the active uses are around it,” she added.

Also on Thursday, design commissioners appointed new officers. Robinson was named chairwoman, and Joe Swank vice chairman. Votes for both positions were unanimous.

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Jessie Burke owns the Society Hotel in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown and volunteers as chairperson of the Old Town Community Association. She watches the neighborhood decline as it suffers from what she sees as the city’s badly skewed enforcement priorities.

“We get parking tickets, and I see a hatchet fight two hours later,” Burke said. “It’s the craziest thing to reconcile in your mind.”

Old Town Chinatown has long been one of Portland’s roughest neighborhoods, but conditions have deteriorated precipitously since the pandemic began, according to community representatives. Now, tents line the sidewalks. Loud arguments break out at all hours. Cleanup personnel battle needles and human waste.

On Tuesday, the Old Town Community Association held a press conference to kick off a 90-day “reset plan” to improve conditions in the neighborhood. The event seemed to be designed as a rallying point for neighborhood businesses and nonprofits, while increasing pressure on Mayor Ted Wheeler and other city officials to boost law enforcement’s presence and clean up the area.

The neighborhood group laid out several goals it wants the city to achieve within 90 days:

• reduce person-on-person crime by 40 percent;
• reduce property crimes by 50 percent;
• increase lighting, including reinforcement of red lampposts to support the weight of string lights;
• organize a Zoom meet-and-greet with police offers (Portland police officers should know the name of at least one person at each business or residence, and business owners or nonprofit directors should know the name of at least one Portland police officer in Old Town Chinatown); and
• implement mental health response teams with Blanchet House, a nonprofit shelter and kitchen on Northwest Glisan Street.

Old Town Chinatown is adjacent to downtown Portland, separated only by West Burnside Street. But in contrast to other adjacent neighborhoods such as the West End and Goose Hollow, real estate and community development in Old Town Chinatown has been sparse.

The Old Town Community Association holds weekly calls with the Wheeler’s office, Burke said. But Old Town representatives have seen crime and grime persist. With only 400 police officers or so assigned to patrol the whole city, incident response lags, Burke said.

“This is the plan: There is no plan,” she said.

Wheeler, in response to questions from the 91��Ƶ, indicated more help would be coming.

“The requests made by the Old Town Community Association are very reasonable,” Wheeler stated in an email via a spokesperson. “Oldtowners are asking to go to work peacefully, attend college, make a living or visit Old Town’s unique stores, bars, restaurants and cultural attractions. I intend to help them in the weeks ahead and ask others to join with me. Portland Oldtowners’ never-give-up attitude deserves our full support.”

Lacking an adequate police presence, Old Town business owners have increasingly turned to private security services such as Echelon Protective Services, as in December. Echelon security guards were present at Tuesday’s press conference.

Still, the efforts haven’t stopped deaths and shootings in the neighborhood. Jaquan Jenkins, 26, was killed in a shooting at Northwest Second Avenue and Couch Street early in the morning of Jan. 28, according to police. On Christmas Eve 2021, Derrick Kenreko Marshall, 41, was fatally shot at Northwest Sixth Avenue and Davis Street.

Living in the neighborhood has become difficult for residents, many of whom have low incomes. Leonard Keck, 52, said he was relieved when he got an electric wheelchair that allows him much greater mobility. But the presence of tents on many sidewalks complicates his trips.

“The tents, they don’t give me room on the sidewalks,” Keck said. “Half the time, I have to go into the middle of the road.”

Keck said trips have become so troublesome that he hesitates to leave his apartment in Musolf Manor, an Innovative Housing property.

Meanwhile, real estate development in the neighborhood has slowed despite its proximity to downtown. The neighborhood has seen an influx of affordable housing projects, including The Starlight, a Central City Concern project that Walsh Construction is building. Formerly the Westwind Apartments, The Starlight will offer 100 deeply affordable apartments when complete.

Old Town Chinatown is entirely within Portland’s opportunity zone, offering capital gains tax benefits to investors. Maximum heights in portions of the neighborhood were increased by the Central City 2035 zoning plan. Height limits vary but reach 460 feet on some properties.

Business and city officials are working to combat a proliferation of storefront vacancies. Upper Playground, an apparel shop and art gallery in business since 2016, announced on Instagram that it would close permanently on Sunday. Other closures since the pandemic began have included hip Mexican restaurant Mi Mero Mole and a Starbucks.

But other businesses are showing signs of life. Karl Dinkelspiel, a project manager at Prosper Portland, is tracking several openings:

• Deadstock Coffee plans to expand into the vacant former Mi Mero Mole space at Northwest Fifth Avenue and Couch Street, Dinkelspiel said. (Deadstock Coffee owner Ian Williams could not be reached for comment).
• OpenHAUS, a co-working business that caters to entrepreneurs of color, has taken approximately 5,000 square feet at Northwest Third Avenue and Davis Street.
• Goodies, a new market and plant nursery, will open on the 200 block of Northwest Davis Street.
• Cycle Portland, which closed briefly, will reopen at Northwest Third and Davis.
• A new arts and event space, Homies, is planned for Northwest Fourth Avenue and Glisan Street.

Prosper Portland is following a strategy laid out in a May 2021 ECONorthwest report to activate Old Town Chinatown, Dinkelspiel said.

“We’re following the strategy as best we can and with the resources we have available to us,” he said.

Prosper Portland also follows its five-year action plan. The agency has funded storefront improvements and repairs.

Matt Goodman, vice president of Downtown Development Group, said the neighborhood has suffered from the “spillover effects” of a concentration of social service organizations that hasn’t been managed well by city or Multnomah County officials.

“By any measure, that’s been a tremendous failure in Old Town,” he said. “If you walk or drive through Old Town, it’s heartbreaking.”

Downtown Development Group owns neighborhood parking lots that have not yet been snapped up for redevelopment. Other properties the family firm owns have been sold for redevelopment, including Block 216 for the Ritz-Carlton tower, or in the case of Eleven West, redeveloped with partners.

As part of the 90-day pilot program announced this week, the Office of Civic Life will step up graffiti removal, and Downtown Portland Clean & Safe will pick up litter. But business owners are looking to the city to do more.

Burke said she asked city officials what they plan to do for the neighborhood. They turned the task back to Burke, asking her to come up with goals to accomplish, she said. That she has done.

“You might regret asking me to write the goals,” Burke said, “because that becomes your deliverables.”

The post A search for solutions in Portland’s Old Town appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Central City Concern is bringing new life to the southwest corner of Northwest Sixth Avenue and Flanders Street in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown.

The old, decrepit Westwind Apartments building was demolished in October 2021, and Walsh Construction has since led the effort to replace it with a seven-story, 100-unit affordable housing structure designed by Works Progress Architecture.

Recently, the building got a name: the Starlight. Central City Concern’s director of real estate development, Mary-Rain O’Meara, said the name relates to the area better since Amtrak’s Coast Starlight line travels through Union Station nearby and the annual Starlight Parade passes through downtown.

The building will have 70 single-room-occupancy units and 30 studio apartments for people earning either 30 percent (or less) or 50 percent (or less) of the area median income. There will also be ground-floor retail space and an outdoor courtyard. Residents will have access to “extensive supportive services,” according to the city of Portland.

Early Thursday morning, Zavala Corp. crews started laying the second and last post-tensioned concrete deck. They began on the southeast corner of the site in the dark, and by 9 a.m. on a clear morning, the third-floor deck was nearly filled in.

Pouring concrete in the Portland-metro area comes with lots of challenges, especially now when there’s so much construction taking place, Walsh Construction Community Outreach Director Afton Walsh said. Project teams must pick their day two weeks out, commit to it, and then hope for good weather, she added, because concrete crews have full schedules.

Once Zavala Corp. finishes its work, framers, plumbers and electricians will enter.

“It’s kind of an exciting day,” Walsh said. “It’s sort of the completion of one scope of work, and then we’re really off to the races.”

This is the first time Walsh Construction has partnered with Zavala Corp., a COBID-certified firm based in Troutdale. Its crews laid the foundation and the two post-tensioned decks.

“(It’s the) start of a very long partnership,” Walsh said. “I know that.”

Over the coming months, the building will rise four more stories and gain a roof. Then drywall work will begin.

Central City Concern opted for new construction, O’Meara said, mainly to increase site density and provide space to better suit future residents – primarily chronically homeless individuals – and social service providers.

The new building is designed to achieve Earth Advantage platinum standards. There will be a solar array on the roof. Also, an outdoor courtyard on the second floor was designed to match neighboring buildings’ courtyards and create a small, urban oasis.

Construction of the project is expected to wrap in the fall.

“We really see it as revitalizing this corner of Old Town,” O’Meara said. “We’re looking forward to having it come to fruition.”

The post New life for a bit of Old Town Chinatown appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Haseltine Building, in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown neighborhood, has already endured 127 years’ worth of Pacific Northwest weather. Work now under way should help the structure withstand much more.

Melvin Mark Brokerage Company acquired the 48,000-square-foot building in 2007 and then invested in an extensive interior remodel that improved energy efficiency and tenant space. But even though a new cornice was installed in 1980 and the brick masonry was repainted, the exterior needed more attention.

Now the four-story building at 133 S.W. Second Ave. is undergoing a complete face-lift that will touch its façade, glazing and masonry. Work began Sept. 2 and is likely to wrap up by the end of the year, weather permitting.

“It’s not in terrible shape,” said Matt Zeller, project manager for Pioneer Waterproofing, a Portland firm that has specialized in historic building renovations since 1964. “We’ve cleaned the stone, which was super dirty; it had a bunch of carbon on it. We then started stripping all the windows and then started grinding out all the bad mortar joints.”

The quarter-block Haseltine Building features a Richardsonian Romanesque-style design; it’s a contributing resource in the Skidmore/Old Town Historic District. As such, any renovations or repairs are strictly regulated by the National Park Service as well as the city of Portland. With very few exceptions, any work must use matching materials as those in the existing building as well as maintain its existing appearance. This applies to details such as the mortar used to secure brick masonry.

The first part of the job involved grinding out old lime mortar, having its chemical composition tested by an East Coast lab and then creating a new batch of mortar to match the old.

“I replicated what was in there,” Zeller said. “It’s more breathable and it has the same compactive strength, but it just breathes better into the wall. It allows water to seep out a lot better than, say, a type N mortar would.”

The building’s south side, fronting Southwest Pine Street, has borne the brunt of the weather-based wear and tear.

“On this (east) side we didn’t do so much replacing the mortar; this side wasn’t as bad,” Zeller said. “On this (south) side, we replaced 100 percent of it. You can see it’s all brand new mortar. The stone is all chiseled out. There are, I’d say, about 70 patches all throughout that we did to make it blend back in.”

While the building itself has retained integrity against water intrusion from the top, the next step in the job will see every window in the building reglazed and all window frames and sills replaced by subcontractor Stayton Wood Windows due to water damage and rot. Water has leaked through most of the windows during driving storms.

“We went into this project not knowing how bad of shape the windows were in,” Zeller said.

Once the paint was stripped from the wooden frames and sills, however, windows’ conditions became clear.

“Every single window sill is completely rotted,” Zeller said. “If you touch it, it completely falls apart. Before, it was just strip them and paint them. Now we have to fix them. You can’t usually tell until you’re actually up there and going through it.”

After the windows are refurbished, the upper three floors of brick masonry will be repainted by Hunt Painting to match the building’s original rusty red color. Fortunately, the masonry and the sandstone cladding on the ground level are in passable condition and don’t require any serious work.

“It’s getting there,” Zeller said. “It’s almost done.”

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Prosper Portland and Lan Su Chinese Garden are working together on plans for a full-block mixed-use development in Old Town Chinatown.

On Wednesday, Prosper Portland’s board approved moving forward with the $8 million purchase of Block 24. Lan Su is under contract with the current owner, NW Natural.

The 0.9-acre property became available after NW Natural decided to move from One Pacific Square to the new 250 Taylor building. Block 24 is currently a surface parking lot.

Lan Su board members said the organization plans to construct a new five-story building that would link to the garden. The building would include a cultural center, a café, a theater, an event space, administrative offices and more. A sunken plaza able to accommodate outdoor events would join the two properties. A private developer will be sought for the project.

Overall, Lan Su is planning to build 50,000 square feet for its own purposes.

“That is definitely ambitious and definitely bold, but we think all of those activities in combination would create a really lively and engaging ground-floor opportunity on Block 24,” said Susan Hartnett, vice president of the Lan Su Chinese Garden board of directors.

The cultural center would play an important role, Hartnett said.

“As we deal with the impacts of COVID and a likely recession, looking to retail may not be the best thing, so the culture and heritage center is a great opportunity to create active uses on the ground floor for that whole block,” she said.

A hotel, retail space, office space or housing – driven by market demand – would fill the rest of the building, officials said.

Prosper Portland will use a $4 million inter-fund loan from Portland Parks & Recreation to assist with the purchase. Tax increment financing will be used as well.

The property was appraised in February at $9.5 million. The purchase price below that value reflects the cost of environmental remediation, said Karl Dinkelspiel, development manager for Prosper Portland.

The project will be a joint effort of Lan Su, Prosper Portland and likely a third-party developer, Dinkelspiel said. The developer would be selected in 2021 or 2022 after a request for interest, he said.

The project aligns with Prosper Portland’s long-term goals to boost economic opportunity in Old Town Chinatown. An action plan for the neighborhood was approved in 2014 and renewed last year.

Block 24 is bounded by Northwest Flanders and Glisan streets, and Second and Third avenues. It’s directly east of Block 25, where Key Development is working on another major proposal. Combined, the two projects would add tens of millions of dollars in economic development to Old Town Chinatown.

“There’s a lot of potential hopefully about to be unlocked there,” said Shawn Uhlman, spokesman for Prosper Portland.

The parcel is zoned central commercial. It has a base 6-to-1 floor-area ratio, with an additional 3-to-1 bonus available. The property has a 350-foot base height, although it’s unlikely the project would be anywhere near that tall, Dinkelspiel said.

Raymond Cheng, Lan Su’s board president, said the building would have a rooftop garden. He added that Lan Su has been working on a design with Li Chung “Sandi” Pei, a son of the late, legendary architect I.M. Pei, who died last year. Sandi Pei co-founded PEI Architects in New York City.

An early rendering from PEI Architects showed a 26-story hotel tower that would dwarf Lan Su Chinese Garden. That was an early concept put forward before Prosper Portland became involved in the project.

“It’s clear to everybody involved that it’s too early to say what exactly could be there,” Uhlman said. “It could be a hotel. It could be housing. All options are on the table.”

The building’s use “depends on what the market will bear,” he added.

Cheng said he met with Mayor Ted Wheeler to discuss the project more than a year ago.

“We are looking forward to making this happen, and making this a transformational project,” he said.

The post A big deal for Old Town Chinatown appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland Design Commission on Thursday got its first look at plans for the new Westwind Apartments: a seven-story, 100-unit affordable housing structure in Old Town Chinatown.

The project, backed by the Portland Housing Bureau and housing operator Central City Concern, would replace a decrepit, single room occupancy (SRO) building completed in 1903 with a modern one designed by Works Progress Architecture. The existing building at 333 N.W. Sixth Ave. would be demolished.

Works Progress Architecture brought a sleek, contemporary design to Thursday’s hearing. The L-shaped building would fit tightly on the quarter-block lot. The project team faces a number of site challenges, including an ongoing issue with the Portland Bureau of Transportation regarding the public right-of-way and whether an easement or a major encroachment would be required.

The building would have 70 short-term SRO units and 30 studio apartments. There would also be offices for Central City Concern and community spaces.

The exterior would have dark metal panels. The design features a prominent corner at Northwest Sixth Avenue and Flanders Street anchored by trees growing from box-shaped projections. Two loading areas would be located off of Flanders Street.

Design commissioners said the building should respond to its context: Old Town Chinatown is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Oregon, with a unique collection of low-slung brick masonry buildings that date back more than a century. That presents a different challenge for Works Progress Architecture – a firm known for cutting-edge contemporary architecture in Portland’s commercial corridors.

“The thing about the buildings Works brings in – they are a meta-context,” Design Commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston said. “There is a body of work that you own around the city that is part of that. I would like to see – I will see – how you ultimately land one of your buildings in such a strong context.”

Design commissioners focused on the proposed materials, including exterior metal paneling.

“The metal panel for me is a tough sell because there is masonry on pretty much every building in the neighborhood,” Commissioner Jessica Molinar said.

While the project team must account for neighborhood context, it also is working with a strict budget.

“Obviously there is a cost consideration when it comes to masonry, and we don’t talk about money in the hearing room, but there are more affordable solutions besides brick,” Livingston said.

The proposal doesn’t need to mimic its historic neighbors, Commissioner Sam Rodriguez said.

“Contextually, it’s a very interesting problem, because this is a very old neighborhood,” he said. “I don’t think we need to do Disneyland, Mickey Mouse copies of what’s there.”

Commissioners also probed the design team on the tree-sprouting projections.

“We have a hard time keeping landscaping alive under overhangs,” Brian McCarter said.

The projections should work as architectural elements with or without trees, commissioners said.

The Westwind is a key affordable housing project for the city. The Housing Bureau in November 2018 used tax-increment financing to purchase the property from a Newberg couple for $3 million. The new building would be constructed using money from the city’s $258.4 million housing bond that was approved by voters in November 2016. Multnomah County has pledged to contribute $4 million to the project.

The project team is expected to return before the Design Commission later this month.

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From a cutting-edge micro-grid electrical system to a 71,000-gallon basement cistern that stores rainwater for conversion to drinking water, the PAE Living Building in Portland is going to be a living laboratory of innovation.

Walsh Construction is preparing to break ground soon on a parcel at the corner of Southwest Pine Street and First Avenue in Old Town Chinatown. The five-story, 58,700-square-foot office building was designed by ZGF Architects to meet the requirements of the International Living Future Institute‘s Living Building Challenge. If successful, it will be the largest commercial Living Building in Oregon and the first of its type in Portland.

“There are not many buildings like this out there,” said Marc Brune, a principal with PAE, the engineering firm responsible for designing the building’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems. “And they’re all different.”

Brune, who led the PAE design team, detailed several new technologies and processes expected to help the structure ultimately become a certified Living Building. That will require it to produce more power and potable water than it consumes.

Power is probably the easier of the two, Brune said, and will be accomplished through the combination of a 95-kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic array and a micro-grid system that uses a large lithium-ion battery to store excess power.

“Because of the spot network and the way the grid is set up, we can’t feed as much energy as we want out to the grid,” Brune said. “So we’re getting around that with a 250-kilowatt battery. It’s a pretty big battery for a building, and a micro-grid controller paired with batteries allows the building to operate on an independent grid within the building itself.”

The controller determines whether to send energy to batteries, the grid or the building itself. Use of a battery also allows for a larger photovoltaic array than otherwise.

The project is being closely watched by Portland General Electric, which already is running a pilot program for two other projects’ micro-grid systems. One of them is the Beaverton Public Safety Center being constructed by Skanska USA Building. PAE also served as the MEP engineer for that project and lessons learned are being carried over into the PAE Living Building.

Darren Murtaugh, a senior manager for energy storage at PGE, said the term micro-grid describes systems ranging from a single site up to a large section of the electric grid.

Unlike the Beaverton project, the PAE Living Building will have to contend with a much denser network.

“The challenge that we both recognize is they’re in the downtown core area network, where it’s really difficult to be able to feed energy back to the grid,” Murtaugh said. “That’s where the engineers on both sides of the equation both get very excited; that’s part of the fun. We’re working together pretty closely these days to figure out how can we unlock this puzzle and qualify as a Living Building.”

The key is energy storage technology.

“It’s the ability to time-shift the energy they produce with solar and ‘levelize’ it so there’s no instance in time where the back-feed into the grid is too great,” Murtaugh said.

Further, the system will automatically disconnect when power flows from one or more customers back to the grid.

“This didn’t use to be a problem,” Murtaugh said. “But in tomorrow’s world that is a concern. Fundamentally it changes everything about what was a really high-reliability design. It doesn’t work right when you have customers who want to back-feed into the grid.”

Fortunately, micro-grid systems are an emergent technology, and the price of lithium-ion battery storage has fallen in recent years. Think Tesla electric cars for a close comparison.

“Most buildings have not been designed to do net zero in places where your grid limits your ability to feed back,” Brune said. “And other projects that consider a micro-grid controller and battery are normally critical facilities, something that needs to operate independent of the grid.”

Achieving net-zero water use is a bit trickier. As designed, the PAE Living Building will use only water collected and treated on-site.

All rainwater falling on the building will be collected and sent to the basement cistern for treatment. On the flip side, a new type of vacuum-flush plumbing system will collect wastewater and feed it to a series of composters, which will convert it into nitrogen- and phosphorus-based fertilizers.

A urine separation system will even sequester and treat an anticipated 30 gallons of wastewater per day for use as fertilizer. The vacuum-flush system, meanwhile, will feed the cistern in just 0.1-gallon increments – roughly 20 percent of the average flush toilet.

The project will feature locally-sourced cross-laminated timber and not use galvanized steel products in order to avoid hexavalent chromium – a known carcinogen.

It’s the issue of power, however, that is most important to the project and future ones. That is because renewable energy systems have the most potential for wider adoption.

“Batteries are a hot topic in the industry,” Brune said. “As costs come down, if everyone is net metering, then the utility becomes stressed without the storage aspect.”

It’s an area of the industry where even the experts have a lot to learn, Murtaugh said.

“We’re hoping they (pilot projects) will give us real world experience in location-specific benefits,” he said. “We can answer how these resources can be leveraged to offset traditional distribution investment and how they can improve voltage management. Today, none of us are very good at quantifying what that potential value is.”

The post Project team blazing a trail appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Key Development has entered into exclusive negotiations with Prosper Portland to construct a two-building project on Block 25 in Old Town Chinatown.

Key has engaged Japanese firms to provide the project a culturally specific aesthetic. Shigeru Ban Architects and Earthscape, a landscape design studio, will design the project, along with Portland’s GBD Architects. Key Development reached out to the Japanese firms in response to the cultural goals shaped by Prosper Portland’s advisory committee.

The development team seeks to honor the area’s historic Japantown. Much of the neighborhood north of downtown was once home to residents of Japanese ancestry and businesses serving them. That changed in 1942, when Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated to isolated camps during World War II.

“There’s very little left of what used to be a largely dominant Japanese neighborhood,” said Claudia Munk-von Flotow, chief operating officer of Key Development.

The Japanese firms will also add cultural diversity that Key lacks internally, Munk-von Flotow said.

“We recognize that, and we’re trying to do a cultural project,” she said.

Munk-von Flotow said she has long admired Ban’s designs, including the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado.

Preliminary plans call for two buildings on Block 25. One would be eight stories of cross-laminated timber with ground-floor retail space topped by commercial space. For the ground floor, Key’s managers are in talks with Connie Wohn, a local arts scene veteran and events manager, to run a social club. The building would step down to the neighboring Lan Su Chinese Garden.

The other, larger building would be multifamily, including market-rate and inclusionary housing units. The residential building could stretch up to 200 feet high if the City Council gives its assent. The state Land Use Board of Appeals has remanded to the council a decision on the allowable height on the block.

“Our proposal was 200 feet because it felt like it made sense,” Munk-von Flotow said. “It made sense architecturally with the context of the neighborhood, and it makes sense financially. It feels like the right height for that space is no more than 200 feet.”

The project is flexible enough to accommodate a range of heights, she said.

“We think a project at this site is scalable; it just depends on what goals Prosper Portland and the community stakeholders want to achieve,” Munk-von Flotow added in an email message.

Block 25 has served as a parking lot for NW Natural employees. With the utility’s move to the 250 Taylor building, the 0.62-acre parcel became available for development. Property owner Prosper Portland issued a request for proposals in May.

The block is bounded by Northwest Third and Fourth avenues, and Flanders and Glisan streets.

Key’s response spoke to Prosper Portland’s goals to honor the community’s history, said Eric Jacobson, a project manager at the agency.

“Their proposal really took to heart those development goals,” he said. “They did a lot of research and had some programmatic elements and design elements that reflected those development goals.”

Key also had a strong working relationship with Prosper Portland from building Yard and SideYard at the Burnside bridgehead.

Separately, Prosper Portland is also negotiating with Colas Development and Colas Construction to build a project at Fourth Avenue and West Burnside Street. The project would have five to seven stories, including a possible multicultural food venue on the first floor, office space for Colas and Bow Leong Bing Kong Tong, a Chinese community association, on the second floor, and three to five stories of housing above that.

Both projects are part of wider plans for growth in Old Town Chinatown. Last week, the City Council endorsed a five-year extension of the Old Town Chinatown action plan.

The projects are within the River District urban renewal area, which has $17.5 million in tax-increment financing available. Prosper Portland officials said the project would be eligible for urban renewal dollars, but no agreements have been made. The action plan has drawn criticism by the media for sitting on unspent money.

Prosper Portland spokesman Shawn Uhlman said private developers have moved ahead with many projects in the neighborhood without requesting public money. These include the Society Hotel and Hoxton Hotel, Downtown Development Group‘s multifamily project at Southwest Third Avenue and Ash Street (while that project is not within Old Town Chinatown, it is part of the River District urban renewal area) and a new Starbucks on Northwest Third Avenue.

“There have been a lot of things that have happened here; it just hasn’t required a lot of dollars from Prosper Portland,” Uhlman said. “I do think we want to correct this narrative that nothing has happened in Old Town Chinatown in the last five years.”

Still, development dollars have flowed into other areas, including downtown and Goose Hollow.

“There are a lot of reasons,” said Bernie Kerosky, a project manager in charge of the action plan. “There has been, perhaps, better investment opportunities in other areas – less risk, higher rents. We think the market’s starting to pick up here, and there’s more interest in the area, but it’s probably going to need some help from Prosper here.”

The post A Key development for Old Town Chinatown 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.

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The Portland Housing Bureau is in the process of purchasing the Westwind Apartments – an Old Town Chinatown building with 70 single-room units. The Westwind has served as a refuge for extremely low-income and vulnerable tenants.

The $3 million to purchase the building will come from downtown waterfront tax increment financing. The Housing Bureau, in announcing the move Tuesday, said it plans to pair new units with supportive services for people exiting homelessness.

The redevelopment project would cost an estimated $21 million that would likely come from the city’s $258.4 million housing bond that voters approved in 2016. Also, Multnomah County has committed $4 million to the project.

“It’s looking like it will likely be a teardown,” Sophia June, spokeswoman for Mayor Ted Wheeler, stated in an email. “In the interim, PHB will assess the immediate capital needs, so they can start with some immediate health and safety rehab, so existing residents can continue to safely live there.”

In time, tenants will need to move, June stated.

“PHB is also looking at the Joyce Hotel as a potential spot for them to be located in the event of a teardown,” she stated.

The 28,080-square-foot Westwind building occupies a quarter-block at 333 N.W. Sixth Ave. and was built in 1903, according to public records. Services to aid homeless and low-income individuals are located nearby. Katina’s Deli & Grocery formerly operated on the ground-floor corner of Northwest Sixth Avenue and Flanders Street.

“The Westwind is one of the last remaining single-room occupancy buildings providing low-barrier unregulated affordable housing in the central city,” Housing Bureau Director Shannon Callahan stated in a news release. “We’re grateful to have this opportunity to buy it and replace the housing with safe, high-quality, long-lasting homes with support services.”

City officials have pledged to create or preserve 1,300 units of affordable housing with the bond money. Other projects include a new 51-unit apartment complex built on East Burnside Street, and the $3.72 million purchase of the former Safari Club property at Southeast 30th Avenue and Powell Boulevard. Redevelopment there is in an early design stage.

The Housing Bureau purchased the Ellington apartments for $47 million in February 2017, preserving 260 units.

The city is also working to build 2,000 supportive housing units to link shelter with services for those who need them.

The Housing Bureau expects to bring the Westwind purchase to the City Council for approval in the fall.

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