Perhaps it was kismet that as we lost food visionary Ron Paul this past December, the Washington Post ranked Portland as America’s best food city. Paul did, after all, play a leading role in the elevation of the city’s food scene and so much more.

Paul, who died at 65 from complications tied to cancer, was a respected restaurateur who owned Ron Paul Catering & Charcuterie. He also was a well-known proponent of using local foods.

“When he opened the Charcuterie he started a whole food movement in Portland,” said Toni Berres-Paul, his wife of 34 years. “I think Ron was one of the pioneers of that. He was way ahead of his time.”

Paul worked for more than a decade to establish the James Beard Public Market, which will be built at the Morrison Bridge‘s west end. Completion is scheduled for 2018. Initial plans call for the 80,000-square-foot market to feature more than 150 food vendor stalls, a mezzanine level with a learning kitchen and event venue, a rooftop terrace, below-grade parking, and both indoor and outdoor seating and gathering spaces.

Berres-Paul, a legal writing professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, said her husband’s travels inspired him to create the market.

“From his experiences in markets all around the world, he saw that markets are an excellent place for community and for people to get together and enjoy wonderful foods,” she said.

“He was so much a visionary,” Fred Granum, who succeeded Paul as the market’s executive director, told the 91��Ƶ shortly after Paul’s passing. “He brought his background as a chef to work for his community and moved into a successful career as a public servant. His loss saddens us all. He will be sorely missed.”
In addition to his career as a restaurateur, Paul served as chief of staff for Charlie Hales when the mayor was a city commissioner from 1999 to 2002. Berres-Paul said Paul’s public service was important to him.

“He always said he went from retail to retail politics. Those three years in government – that’s when the whole market idea originated and it’s a place where you can start to get things done,” she said.

Paul was the father of three children, which Berres-Paul said he considered his most important accomplishment.

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The architects of a planned public market in Portland will host a community open house Saturday to gather feedback on the design.

The open house, scheduled to run from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, will be the culmination of a four-day design forum that started Wednesday for the James Beard Public Market design team.

Staffers from the Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta are kicking off design of the market by meeting this week with dozens of potential venders, civic leaders and other project partners before seeking input from the general public at Saturday’s open house, said Ron Paul, executive director of the Historic Portland Public Market Foundation. The nonprofit organization is leading efforts to build the James Beard Public Market – named for the late chef, cookbook author, syndicated columnist, television personality and Portland native – at a site on Southwest Naito Parkway at the West End of the Morrison Bridge.

An important part of the design process will involve ensuring the food, beverage and flower market truly meets the public’s needs, Paul said. The community open house will have tables and wall displays offering attendees opportunities to share their thoughts in a variety of ways, as well sample food from Oregon-based producers and decorate cookies.

“It’s an interactive day,” Paul said. “We’re not doing a traditional design charrette. What we’re doing is asking people to share their ideas for the market and what they’d like to experience. It’s very much a time for the public to shape the market. It’s time to put the ‘public’ in public market.”

At 2:30 p.m., Portland Mayor Charlie Hales, Historic Portland Public Market Foundation members and the project architects will give a brief presentation. The main topic of that presentation will the design team’s initial findings and input gathered during the design forum, Paul said.

It’s important to the Snohetta design team to gather this feedback before diving into producing initial market concepts over the coming months, he said. These early plans will be revealed publicly in early April 2015.

“Now is the critical time to influence that process, not when we’re four, five or six months into the design,” Paul said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

James Beard Public Market

Anticipated construction start date: fall 2016

Anticipated construction completion date: spring 2018

Architects: Snohetta, SERA Architects, Studio Jeffreys

Landscape architect: Mayer/Reed

Engineers: KPFF Consulting Engineers, Interface Engineering

Other associates: Melvin Mark Cos.

��

If you go …

What: James Beard Public Market community open house

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

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

RSVP:

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Multnomah County and the Portland Development Commission are seeking ideas for one of downtown’s key development sites.

The two agencies have put out a request for proposals asking developers to dream up the future of four county-owned city blocks at the foot of the Morrison Bridge in downtown. The four blocks – known as blocks 1, 2, 16 and 39 – make up 136,110 square feet of surface space surrounding the foot of the bridge.

All four parcels are currently used as parking space and have no permanent structures on them. The lots are also zoned central commercial and within the Central City Plan District. Block 16 has a 235-foot height limit, while the rest have 75-foot height limits.

The sites have been pitched for various developments over the years. Most recently local consultant Ron Paul had pegged the site for the future home of his indoor public market concept, the . But no deal was ever made.

The RFP asks for a property acquisition plan, a general development concept plan and a list of relevant qualifications. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 9, 2011. There will be a non-mandatory property site inspection tour on Nov. 30, at 10:30 a.m.

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There has long been a structured formula for creating financially feasible public market halls – repurposing large, historic commercial buildings into bustling year-round indoor marketplaces.

“Indoor markets need to be open and flexible while maintaining a relatively low lease rate,” said Kelly Williams, assistant planner with the New York-based Project for Public Spaces. “So, old warehouses and large industrial facilities work nicely.”

In Portland, however, developers of the long-proposed James Beard Public Market are breaking the mold. They tried multiple times to lease space in a historic building before settling on a plan to build a new, sustainably-minded facility at the foot of the Morrison Bridge in downtown.

That is a departure from the successes achieved by some of the most popular public markets around the country, such as Pike’s Place Market in Seattle, Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia and Ferry Plaza Market in San Francisco. All are located in repurposed historic buildings.

Williams noted that of the 100 indoor public market halls in the United States, she is not aware of a single one that had a building constructed for it.

“When people come to us they usually have an existing space already in mind,” she said. “The reason is that people tend to use markets as a way to revitalize an area, not develop a new one.

“Also, market halls are usually started by nonprofit organizations because they aren’t big moneymakers for building owners. The organizations usually have limited budgets and building new is not an option.”

But this is not the case for the backers of the James Beard Public Market. After failing to lease space at the Central Fire Station Building in Ankeny Square, Union Station and the 511 Federal Building, developers teamed up with Melvin Mark, owner of Melvin Mark Cos. Mark has since been leading fundraising for the project, increasing the feasibility of building new.

Multnomah County commissioners last week decided to speed up the process in sending out a Request for Proposals on the county-owned Morrison bridgehead property. The James Beard Market board and SERA Architects will be submitting a proposal for a mixed-use development that will include a 55,000-square-foot bottom-floor space for the market and housing or office space above.

Williams noted that while historic buildings often provide character and uniqueness, a market really only needs to reflect its surroundings and customer base. That’s why the creators of the James Beard Market are focusing on sustainability.

Ron Paul, consulting director for the James Beard Public Market, said the team is looking at every practical way to make the new building sustainable. This would include green walls with vegetation to catch rainwater and a climate-influenced temperature management system, he said.

“All the major downtowns in the U.S. were created around where the market was because it was where everyone met,” Williams said. “So, a market can become a destination but it really needs to have synergy with what’s around it first.”

Paul noted that the developers like the current tract of land because it’s more of a crossroads than a cul-de-sac. Not only will the new market be in the same vicinity as the markets of the 19th and 20th centuries, but it also will be within walking distance to Portland Saturday Market, the downtown shopping districts and some east-side districts, he said.

“We always encourage people to find a location next to an outdoor market or a farmers market,” Williams said. “Sales increase at both locations when an indoor market is put next to an outdoor market.”

Other new public market halls around the state are sticking with the standard formula.

In Tillamook, a revitalization committee restored and repurposed the 94-year-old Independent Order of Odd Fellows Building into an indoor market with room for 20 vendors year-round. The market is slated to open later this month.

In Astoria, developers Brian Faherty and Paul Caruana are renovating and repurposing the Astor Hotel Building into a mixed-use development. They plan to turn the 3,000-square-foot lobby into a retail market for arts and crafts.

In Medford, Jake Husel and Crista Singley converted an old, 12,800-square-foot industrial building into an antique collectors and artisan guild. It opened last weekend.

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In January, Multnomah County prepared to issue a request for proposals to develop a parcel of county-owned land at the western end of the Morrison Bridge. More than eight months later, that still hasn’t happened.

The county later planned to issue requests to developers first in March and then in August. In each instance, the plans were postponed.

Now, County Commissioner Jeff Cogen, who’s overseeing the disposition of the property for Multnomah County, said the county will issue a request for information from interested developers within the next two to three weeks.

But the lone development team looking at the land is prepared that the county may not move forward … again.

“If the county doesn’t get back to us in the next couple of weeks, I’ll have to again ask for a more specific date,” said Ron Paul, whose Melvin Mark Development team envisions a public market on the property.

Paul, a former restaurateur and city employee, is leading the only development team that has expressed interest in the property. He describes the planned James Beard Public Market, named after the Oregon-born chef, as something akin to Pike Place Market in Seattle: A year-round food market featuring locally sourced produce and meats.

It’s an ambitious project, the developers say, because it’s never been done in Portland.

“We have to remember, developments like this don’t happen overnight,” said Dan Petrusich, president of Melvin Mark’s development division.

Cogen said one reason the county’s request has been delayed is because it hopes to attract more interest from developers.

Cogen said he believes the site will generate more interest, depending on when the county’s request for information goes out to developers. A lagging real estate market has made the county cautious about moving forward, he added.

“It is a very challenging property, and I haven’t seen a better use for the property (than the public market),” Cogen said. “But if someone has a better idea, we’ll go with it.”

Paul and Petrusich said they wouldn’t give up on the project if that happened, but they still believe that they have a better shot than other developers. They’ve spent the year performing market research on public markets and designing their project.

“Most developers would probably have problems with the (Morrison Bridge’s) ramps, which go through the property,” Petrusich said, “but we think they actually fit our project perfectly.”

Paul said he hopes other developers show interest in the property.

“We’d like to have some (competition) to our project,” he said. “We don’t want this handed to us.”

Once the RFI comes out, developers will have 60 to 90 days to issue their development plans. Paul said he’s spent the last year studying other public markets and the Morrison Bridgehead site in anticipation of the RFI.

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