Construction of Cairn Pacific‘s sizable mixed-use development for Prometheus Real Estate Group is moving along in Northwest Portland.

Saltwood, designed by SERA Architects, will be a pair of six-story buildings with ground-floor commercial space topped by five floors of apartments. The project will occupy space on Con-way master-planned property bounded by Northwest 20th and 21st avenues and Northwest Savier and Quimby streets.

General contractor Bremik Construction is working on Saltwood North, where crews recently poured the first post-tensioned concrete deck slab in the below-grade parking area.

Meanwhile, at Saltwood South, general contractor R&H Construction has completed the first of three planned foundation slab pours – one accounting for 1,200 cubic yards of concrete in one day.

Ground was broken on Saltwood North in August 2019, and then on Saltwood South in October.

“We’re just the one level below grade,” R&H Construction project manager Mitch Smith said. “On the north, obviously they’re two down. We’re one down and then five over one – the same going up. Schedule-wise, it will be interesting because they started two months before us, but we’ve always planned that we’ll catch them coming up. So we’ll probably start framing at the same time.”

Both buildings will be U-shaped, with a central courtyard opening to the south. Saltwood South will have an overall floor area of roughly 228,000 square feet, with 42,000 additional square feet in the basement, which is slightly larger than the overall building footprint.

Saltwood South’s exterior will feature primarily brick masonry with metal panel accents and a hint of wood.

“From what I can tell, in general they are very similar buildings,” Smith said. “It’s kind of a prototype that the owners like, with a nice, open courtyard. The courtyard is something that seems to be important to them, and with it they want to bring a lot of character to the building.”

At Saltwood South, ironworkers with R2M2 Rebar & Stressing are laying down the rebar for the building’s foundation slab and the first set of support columns. Meanwhile, carpenters with Marion Construction Co. are preparing formwork as waterproofers with Sawtooth Caulking install vapor barrier on the lagging walls that will serve as a form for the foundation walls.

Also, Konell Construction is performing excavation, and Bear Electric and Tapani Plumbing are preparing in-slab conduit and plumbing assemblies.

A second large foundation slab pour of roughly 1,000 cubic yards is in the works, Smith said.

“The concrete plants right now can’t get us enough mud during the weekdays to pull off a big pour like that locally, just because there are so many projects going on,” he said. “And it’s only going to get worse. That’s why Bremik did their pours on Saturdays, which is what we have to do as well.”

It’s about how many yards you can get down per hour, he added.

“When you have the larger pours, just do the math,” Smith said. “On ours you have a 1,200-cubic-yard pour the first one, and if they’re only going to give you 80 yards per hour it’s going to take you 15 hours to physically put the mud down and not even finish it or any of that. So that’s what’s really pushed us to move to Saturday pours.”

The project team is aiming to finish Saltwood South by August 2021.

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Development in the Con-way master-planned area took another big step forward Thursday, as the Portland Design Commission enthusiastically approved a design proposed for Saltwood: a two-building mixed-use project.

Commissioners voted 6-0 in favor of SERA Architects‘ design, allowing developer Cairn Pacific LLC to move forward with a pair of six-story market-rate apartment buildings. Combined, they will hold approximately 17,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space, 354 residential units and below-grade parking.

This will continue the transformation of the intersection of Northwest 21st Avenue and Raleigh Street into a bustling retail hub as part of the Con-way Master Plan. It calls for redevelopment of 17 city blocks of former industrial space into a residential and commercial center.

“All of this stuff is woven together very, very well,” commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston said to Cairn Pacific principal Tom DiChiara and SERA Architects principal Kurt Schultz. “What is happening at the intersection of Raleigh, with Carson South and L.L. Hawkins – that’s really nice urban space, and when you expand it across the street, it’s fantastic urban space.”

Saltwood will rise on city blocks 291W and 292W as a pair of mixed-use apartment buildings with distinctly different appearances. The common denominator will be brick masonry, but the style, color and textures will differ. By contrast, cedar and other decorative wood will dominate the ground-floor retail spaces.

The property under development is split into north and south blocks. It is bounded on the west by Northwest 21st Avenue, on the north by Savier Street and on the south by Quimby Street.

Both buildings will feature landscaped courtyards open to the outside neighborhood. On the ground floor, a wide variety of storefront design features are intended to distinguish each retail space from the next.

“We want to see a great mix that makes that 24-7 style of neighborhood work,” DiChiara said.

The south building will have lighter-colored brick accents with additional metal panels to accent the brick, while the north building will feature darker burgundy brick.

“The south building is not so industrial and probably more urbane in character,” Schultz said.

One of the highlights of the design is a quarter-block expression in each building; combined, they will dominate the northeast and southeast corners of Northwest 21st Avenue and Raleigh Street. Connected to the main buildings by pedestrian walkways, this aspect provides variation of height, rhythm and color coveted by designers.

Another interesting aspect of the plan is the inclusion of large ground-floor, walk-up townhomes on the east side of each building that will front future pedestrian walkways called for in the master plan.

Commissioners praised the manner in which Saltwood fits into the area, which in recent years has seen development of a number of significant projects. These include: the L.L. Hawkins, a six-story mixed use building fronting Northwest 21st Avenue and stretching between Quimby and Raleigh streets; The Carson, a 13-story mixed-use building and a six-story mixed-use building; a New Seasons supermarket at the corner of Northwest 22nd Avenue and Quimby Street; and the Leland James Center, an adaptive reuse effort at the corner of Northwest 22nd Avenue and Raleigh Street.

Future development on the Con-way Blocks will include a new park stretching along the west side of Northwest 21st Avenue between Quimby and Pettygrove streets.

“This is a quality couple of buildings you’ve put together,” Commissioner Andrew Clarke said of Saltwood. “The massing and the way you broke up the massing feels like an urban area that’s actually been here for a little while. I like the quality of colors and materials that you use all the way down to the public realm areas, which are continuing to stitch this new neighborhood together.”

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