Sherrie Devaney, a business owner described as the queen of downtown Tigard, for years has sought revitalization for a mile-long stretch of the city’s Main Street. But in tough economic times it was difficult to convince the rest of the business community that investing in the area now would bring rewards later.

That was until Michele Reeves, an urban strategist on retainer with Metro, entered the picture.

Armed with statistics, a studious approach and tailored strategies, Reeves is working with Tigard, Oregon City, Gresham and Hillsboro to help convert their depressed main streets into thriving business districts. Her work is part of a collaboration with Metro that business owners say is generating real results in a time of need.

“The biggest thing she did is take our grassroots efforts that we’ve been working on and put some legitimacy around them,” Devaney said. “And even though we aren’t done with the program, we are already seeing a change in attitude from not only the business owners, but the city as well.”

The program lasts about four to six months in each community. Reeves starts by discussing how downtown revitalization works, and important steps in the process, without focusing on details of specific areas.

“Everyone has an intuition about what works, but it’s always colored by personal perspective,” Reeves said. “This step allows me to talk about what I do, without pointing out problems and offending people.”

Reeves then spends a month or two studying the area and its history, and talking with property owners, business owners and shoppers. This is followed by a presentation focused on what the area has and how potential changes could help it thrive.

The findings presentation is followed by a bus and walking tour in which Reeves takes business owners, property owners and city officials to either North Mississippi Street or North Williams Street in Portland to point out how those districts became successful.

“I stay away from the Hawthorne District or Northwest 23rd because everyone always points out that there is expensive housing around the areas,” she said. “You can’t say that about these areas. People can’t say their districts are worse than what Mississippi and Williams used to be.”

The final presentation is focused on short-term goals for districts as they pursue revitalization. In Tigard, for example, Reeves suggested forming a downtown business group, which city officials said they would help support financially. She also recommended creating a monthly, themed downtown event with music and food to encourage shops to stay open later.

Devaney said a Tigard’s Night Out event now takes place on the third Friday of each month. July will have a patriotic theme and September will have a birthday theme because that was when Tigard became a city.

Sean Farrelly, Tigard’s redevelopment project manager, said the city has set aside some money for the downtown events this summer and some seed money to start a business group. The city also hired Reeves on retainer separate from the Metro program to help with redevelopment in the future, he said.

After performing work in Tigard and Oregon City, Reeves has shifted her focus toward Gresham. On Wednesday she presented her findings to city officials and the business community.

“As is the case for a lot of the cities I work in, Gresham (officials are) a lot further along than the people think they are,” Reeves said. “They have this interconnected infrastructure in downtown, as well as a great collection of buildings. Not to mention they have a grocery store and library in downtown and a park nearby.

“These are the types of things revitalization can be built around.”

But Gresham does still need some work, Reeves noted.

She made suggestions as specific as changing the colors of buildings and as general as creating a downtown urban renewal area in the future.

“I try to provide them with a lot of information and let them take their own lessons away,” she said. “It’s where they take my information that’s exciting. How they use it is what makes each community distinct.”

After working with Gresham, Reeves will move on to Hillsboro. Her first presentation is scheduled for July 28 at 4 p.m., at the Hillsboro Civic Center.

The post Metro program aids downtown revitalization appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The has become an effective revitalization tool for downtown districts and historic neighborhoods. But cities around Oregon and across the country are being challenged to secure money needed to maintain operations.

Some municipalities and program organizers are considering whether to initiate property tax overlay districts to supplement funding. And in Portland, where three Main Street programs kicked off this year, organizers admit some sort of taxing district is a real possibility.

The started the Main Street program with the goal of helping revitalize commercial districts through historic preservation. The trust offers technical, marketing and financial support to participating cities and states, which then target historic commercial districts.

But while Main Street programs receive some start-up money from state and city sources, coordinators also are required to raise money to help pay for an executive director and operational costs.

“With these programs, like most nonprofits, fundraising is an ongoing battle,” said Sara Wittenberg, a nonprofit consultant hired as the executive director of the Main Street program in Alberta, one of three participating districts in Portland. “We had 102 pledges to get our initial start-up money, with donations ranging from $20 to $5,000.”

The state has seven programs that operate in a similar fashion to those in the three Portland districts; 60 others are in the application process. One of the seven programs is in Oregon City.

The city of Oregon City started its program three years ago. Organizers have since created the award-winning Blue Collar Creative economic revitalization video that promotes downtown, and written grant proposals for more than $3 million. Also, 18 businesses have since relocated to downtown Oregon City.

But the program’s success doesn’t pay the bills.

“It’s a great program and has worked really well here in Oregon City,” said Lloyd Purdy, the manager of the Main Street Oregon City program. “But you need a sustainable funding stream, and that’s what Oregon City is looking for.”

So Purdy is working with the city to create an overlay property tax for the 90 businesses in the downtown core. The tax is being proposed at 1 percent of a property’s assessed value with a cap of $3,000. It would raise $194,000 to $240,000 and help supplement the annual $50,000 the city has allotted for the program over the next three years.

“There comes a time in these programs where the businesses and property owners that take advantage of the benefits should at least look into helping support it,” said Purdy, who managed a Main Street program in Cortland, N.Y., for three years before coming to Oregon City. “The successful programs are the ones that are supported by everyone involved.”

When managing the Main Street program in Cortland, Purdy and the city discussed the possibility of introducing the same type of funding mechanism.

And even in Portland, program organizers are looking into alternative resources to help maintain the program.

“We know we need to start thinking about long-term stability but for the time being we are focused on getting the programs off the ground,” said Kate Deane, a project manager with the Portland Development Commission, one of the main public forces driving the program.

The city has $500,000 budgeted for the program. Each district gets $30,000 from the city and has to match that with $30,000 raised by the coordinators. After the first year, the program coordinators will have to raise an additional $30,000 to cover operating expenses.

And even if each district comes up with the necessary money, the city isn’t promising that it will continue to provide money in the future.

“The city has it budgeted this year, but with the economic situation at hand, there can’t be any guarantees of what the funding will look like next year or a few years down the road,” Deane said.

Wittenberg and Alberta program organizers are aware of this, but are nevertheless moving forward.

“Getting the funds each year is going to be a task; there’s no doubt about that,” Wittenberg said. “But those challenges are outweighed by the benefits of the program. It brings the community together and lets the community members themselves tell the story of the area and plan out the future of development in it.”

A tax, however, is not the only option.

Albany has a contract in which downtown parking revenues go to its Main Street program. And Boston, which has had a program for nearly 30 years, relies on a real estate portfolio for subsidies.

The post Taxes could keep popular program afloat appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The city of Vancouver, Wash., has grand plans to add 1 million square feet of commercial space along its waterfront and essentially create an area similar to the Pearl District over the next 15 years.

But Vancouver’s Downtown Association doesn’t want to see the city’s downtown lost in the shuffle. After spending six months with a consultant, the association now has a plan – and projects – to revitalize the historic district.

Michele Reeves, a Portland-based consultant, has spent much of this year connecting property owners, business owners and Vancouver city officials to start dialogue about how to improve downtown. And after a host of charrettes, walking tours of downtown and bus tours of many Portland districts, Reeves thinks Vancouver is ready to get to work.

“The problem connecting these groups is that the public sector likes documents and master plans, while the business and property owners like discussing ideas,” Reeves said. “My goal was to come in and create a forum that lets both take place.”

Last week, during her final presentation under contract with the downtown association, Reeves recommended three goals for the group to pursue over the coming year: creating better connectivity between downtown and Esther Short Park, improving maintenance of storefronts and street fronts, and further developing a community story about the history of downtown.

“The city can stay focused on planning out years in advance, but as an organization Vancouver’s Downtown Association can produce real change in a year, six months or even this month,” she said.

To better connect Esther Short Park, the association has worked out an agreement with the city to use city-owned Block 10 as a temporary park. The empty city block – located between Eighth Street and Columbia Street – separates the edge of downtown and Esther Short Park.

“The chain-link fence that surrounds the lot creates this really uninviting feeling as you leave downtown and head to the park,” said Lee Rafferty, executive director of Vancouver’s Downtown Association. “Considering the lot won’t be used for five years at the earliest, we decided to ask the city if we could take (the fence) down and maintain the lot.”

The association plans to raise money to add benches and landscaping. Street vendors will be allowed to dot the outside of the lot.

Another significant project on tap is the refurbishment of the Schofield Building at 600 Main St. The structure, originally constructed in the 1860s, is the oldest commercial building in Vancouver. It has been owned by the Schofield family since it was constructed.

“We’re going to start by removing all the plaster that has been added to the shell over the last century and restore the original brick that sits beneath,” said Ed Aschieris, third-generation owner of the building. “Then we will turn our attentions inside and build out 8,000 square feet of second-floor office space that was destroyed in a fire in the 1950s.”

The Schofield family also plans to restore a building it owns at McLoughlin Boulevard and Main Street. Beginning next month, four second-floor office spaces totaling nearly 4,000 square feet will be renovated, Aschieris said.

“This is going to be a great project because it will not only remind us of our family’s history, but the entire history of what downtown Vancouver was,” Aschieris said.

Also being revitalized this year is a restaurant space, at 800 Main St., that sat vacant for nearly a year. Reeves and the downtown association reached out to a group of Portland restaurateurs who are turning it into a sports bar.

In addition, Portland-based developer Aaron Jones will transform a building at Ninth Street and Washington Street into three retail spaces with upstairs apartments. Jones already has lease agreements signed that will bring in a new art gallery, a bakery and a small market.

Work will start on both projects in the coming months.

Reeves believes Vancouver’s historic downtown and the forthcoming commercial development can coexist.

“Your future is, and always will be, built around your history,” Reeves said. “For years, I believe Vancouver has been hiding its history, and it needs to be celebrated.”

The post Revitalization begins in downtown Vancouver appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Queen Sally is still causing ripples in Southwest Washington.

Cathlamet, Wash., was once the largest Native American settlement west of the Cascades, before diseases brought by 19th-century fur traders decimated the local tribes. Nowadays, the town has approximately 570 residents.

A spring named for Queen Sally, long ago the head of the Cathlamet tribe, flows beneath two of Cathlamet’s most important buildings, the Pioneer Church and the town hall, and is undermining the structures from underneath. But now the town is working with designers from Architects Without Borders-Oregon to improve Cathlamet’s relationship with the Queen Sally spring and the buildings.

Cathlamet Mayor George Wehrfritz last year watched a local group, the Pioneer Church Association, work feverishly to perform structural renovations on the historic Pioneer Church. The town hall and the library, which occupy a former firehouse, were also undergoing work to fix years of deferred maintenance and poor structural integrity.

“These buildings are on a hillside,” Wehrfritz said. “The whole hill just leaks water. We were getting the spring water coming up beneath the floors of the buildings.”

Wehrfritz called John Blumthal, founder of Architects Without Borders-Oregon to see if the newly renovated structures could be tied together. After meeting with the community for several design charettes, Blumthal and a team of designers came up with a plan to not only improve the use of space within the ex-firehouse building, but also build a public park honoring the town’s history and Queen Sally.

Design work is still under way, but Wehrfritz said it’s creating buzz in a town that could use a shot in the arm.

“The whole commercial district of this town started at the intersection of Columbia and Main streets, where the church and firehouse are,” Wehrfritz said. “Our problem is we’re a wheel without a hub. Main Street gets worse year after year. Another shop closes. It’s been proven in communities that inspired public spaces add stickiness.”

With a new community center and an expanded library and city offices planned for the former firehouse, community members expressed interest in adding parking to the area.

“When we started, everyone wanted to increase parking,” said Jessica Gracie, a designer with Architects Without Borders-Oregon. “But after working through the design process, they decided to use the extra space for a park instead. All of the residents are characters. They have a stake in what happens here, which makes this project a good and rewarding challenge.”

Queen Sally’s Park will take over a parking lot near the church and town hall, as well as two nearby lots that are overgrown with vegetation, according to Gracie. An amphitheater is planned to be carved into the hillside to provide more space for the theater and musical groups that use the Pioneer Church for performance space.

The largest design challenge for the park, Gracie said, was the water flowing from the Queen Sally spring.

“We tried to approach the issue of water from an ecological perspective and also the historical narrative of the site,” Gracie said. “With the storm water, we tried to mitigate erosion of the hillside and divert the water from running towards the old buildings by constructing a bio-swale. We also created a water feature that brings the water to the surface so the town can celebrate it.”

The town of Cathlamet is at a critical period, Wehrfritz said, because it is rapidly becoming a bedroom community for Longview, 20 miles to the west. The town has about the same number of residents today as it did during its boom time as a hub for the fish-canning industry, but many travel to Longview and other nearby cities to shop at chain stores. Meanwhile, downtown Cathlamet storefronts continue to close.

“The more I know about Main Street, the more frightened I am,” Wehrfritz said. “Our main street is ailing, but it could die. I want people to be oriented back to Main Street. This project is not a silver bullet, but it’s going to make people take another look. And it will give the folks that live in town a reason to be proud.”

Wehrfritz is pursuing several grants to pay for the park portion of the project, which he hopes will be completed by the end of 2012.

The post Architects Without Borders takes on Main Street appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

When money is tight, citizens and city governments have to work together to find unique, inexpensive ways to get things done. This was the case for the city of Newberg as Daneal Construction, a Wilsonville-based civil contractor, broke ground on the city’s “demonstration block” last week.

The “demonstration block,” as the city calls it, will consist of curb extensions, new pedestrian-scale street trees, a bike rack, benches and low-level street vegetation along the south side of First Street from School Street to College Street. The improvements are meant to showcase the future look of the entire downtown corridor in two blocks.

“This was the idea of the (Newberg) Downtown Revitalization Committee,” said Barton Brierley, planning and building director with the city of Newberg. “They wanted to get some of the projects started that have come out of their visioning process, so they decided to do this one small project to show people what downtown could look like in the future and get them excited about it.”

The idea to make downtown Newberg more pedestrian friendly started almost five years ago. At that time, the city of Newberg was entrenched in the process of creating a civic corridor – a six block stretch between Memorial Park and the Chehalem Cultural Center that houses many of the city services, including City Hall, the library and the post office. City planners liked the ideas coming out of the civic corridor process so much they decided to implement some of them in the downtown business district.

The demonstration block costs $40,000, a quarter of which is funded by the local Rotary Club. The features included in the demonstration block will be implemented within the rest of the downtown corridor as part of the city’s transportation infrastructure replacement schedule.

The post Newberg starts first block of revitalization appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.