Fed up with trash, excrement and complaints from office tenants, Central Eastside businesses are uniting to clean up the district.

The Central Eastside Industrial Council (CEIC) is forming an enhanced services district, said Brad Malsin, the council’s president. The district, similar to Clean & Safe (downtown Portland) and Go Lloyd, will pay for workers to remove litter, refer homeless individuals to social services and provide a watchful eye on the area.

The effort comes amid a surge of office development in the Central Eastside. As businesses such as Autodesk, Simple and Viewpoint Construction Services have opened large offices in the area, they’ve found an uneasy coexistence with the district’s homeless population.

“It hasn’t been pervasive, but it has been very disturbing that people are being accosted on the street, that their cars are being broken into,” said Brad Malsin, president of the CEIC and principal at Beam Development. “There’s excrement on the sidewalk and on doorsteps. That’s why we’re doing this enhanced services district. That’s why we’re going to try to take control.”

The district will be funded by assessments on property owners and by a share of revenue from new parking meters. Officials expect to launch the district in 2018.

Workers will patrol the district to clean up trash and watch for misbehavior, Malsin said. The district will provide portable toilets to improve sanitation, and there are ongoing discussions with Central City Concern to connect homeless individuals to supportive services.

“We obviously can’t eliminate homelessness overnight as much as we would love to – and we would love to not have people sleeping outside,” Malsin said. “We realize it’s a process.”

Portland’s homeless population has grown while the Central Eastside has transformed into a hip enclave for tech businesses and the services that follow. Where there were once warehouses and old-school industrial manufacturers, office workers can now get bison and Wagyu beef burgers at Stacked Sandwiches, and single-origin coffees at Water Avenue.

The juxtaposition has made for some strange encounters. One Central Eastside business, OMFG Co., battled a repeat offender who relieved himself on the windowsills. Eventually, the man was caught in the act and arrested, said Ashley Hildreth, studio manager at the branding consulting firm.

Hildreth said the office at the foot of the Burnside Bridge has also been the target of graffiti and detrimental window etching. At times, walking on the sidewalk can be impossible because of tents and tarps erected by homeless people camped there, Hildreth said.

“It’s just kind of a sketchy area,” she said. “The fact that it’s getting developed, though, in the next five years, this whole area will probably feel a whole lot different.”

The Central Eastside’s struggles with homelessness are not unique in Portland. The city and surrounding suburbs are experimenting with various approaches to reducing homelessness, from erecting “tiny houses” to expanding the budget for supportive services.

The sense of alarm seems to be increasing. Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle submitted an op-ed piece that The Oregonian published Nov. 10. He stated he was considering moving the apparel company’s downtown office after threatening incidents, thefts and problems with garbage and human waste. He suggested the city should hire more police officers.

Malsin said he moved forward with the enhanced services district after a meeting with Mayor Ted Wheeler made it clear the city does not have the resources to clean up the Central Eastside on its own. Malsin compared Portland to Seattle, which has a far larger police force, and New York City, which provides extensive emergency shelter.

In New York, Malsin said, “it costs them close to $1 billion a year, but nobody sleeps on the street. You get picked up, they take you to an apartment and you’re housed. I think that’s what we need. If we had the resources, we could do that.”

Malsin serves on the board of A Home for Everyone, and said he has tried to be part of the solution. Each night, 100 to 120 homeless people take shelter in Malsin’s ex-Shleifer Furniture building. Beam Development has plans to tranform the building into a boutique hotel, but for now, it functions as a shelter.

Malsin believes more resources are needed.

“The question is how much are we willing to sacrifice and pay to make sure people aren’t sleeping on the street?” he said.

Companies continue to come to the Central Eastside despite the homelessness problem. Autodesk, a design software company, revealed in May that it had agreed to lease 108,750 square feet in the renovated Towne Storage building. Autodesk will move more than 200 employees to the Burnside bridgehead location.

Strong job growth has helped fuel demand for creative-office space throughout central Portland. In the Central Eastside, developers have responded, with 369,706 square feet of office space under construction during the third quarter, according to Jones Lange LaSalle. Average asking rents rose to $32.02.

“They’re convinced this is where they need to be,” Malsin said. “They want to be amongst the creative firms, the grit and the energy in the district.”

The CEIC has advocated for zoning that encourages industrial office space and sets strict limits on housing and retail operations in the area. The new zoning is included in the city’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan.

Malsin, who was involved in the early stages of the Central Eastside’s transformation, said more changes are forthcoming.

“In this iteration of the Central Eastside, I think it’s still at the very beginning,” he said. “It’s at that nascent moment.”

Many former warehouses and factories have been purchased by developers and converted to creative-office space. But the area has the potential for much greater density, Malsin said.

“The density in the district is really on the minimal side,” he said. “With the new 2035 plan and the Southeast Quadrant plan, we have the opportunity to create a lot more of this kind of workspace. It’s going to take years to unfold, but I think the table’s been set.”

Another new effort coming to the district is the Innovation Quadrant, which seeks to bring educational institutions together with businesses.

Backers are trying to join Oregon Health & Science University, Portland State University, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and Portland Community College with companies such as Intel and Nike to advocate for workforce development.

The Innovation Quadrant will have a small office in the Towne Storage building, Malsin said.

“What we’re trying to do is connect the institutions to the businesses to the creative people in the district,” Malsin said. “There’s a strong desire to collaborate, and I think the Innovation Quadrant is about collaboration.”

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