Doug Peterson is fighting to save his convenience store on the ground floor of a parking garage in downtown Portland at 10th Avenue and Morrison Street.

Peterson opened the store in December 1984. It serves 900 customers a day and supports 28 employees, Peterson said. The store is popular with MAX light-rail riders, college students, construction workers, police officers and tourists.

“You name it, they all come to Peterson’s because we’re open all of the hours they need something,” he said.

Prosper Portland, which manages the retail spaces, plans to evict Peterson’s on Morrison and other businesses that occupy nearly 30,000 square feet of retail space in the parking garage. Officials for the agency, formerly known as the Portland Development Commission, have said the spaces are outdated and have rented below market value for many years.

The parking garage was first identified for redevelopment in a 2009 downtown retail strategy report. The existing retail spaces are “oversized and challenging to merchandise,” Prosper Portland project manager Amy Nagy said. Prosper Portland plans to renovate the spaces and divide them into smaller leasable areas.

That effort is part of a broader $25 million project in partnership with the Portland Bureau of Transportation to modernize and improve seismic resiliency of the SmartPark garage that provides 796 parking spaces in the heart of downtown. PBOT owns the property and will manage the construction project. Prosper Portland is overseeing the retail transformation.

Peterson and the other retailers face a Jan. 14, 2018, eviction date. Construction will begin shortly thereafter and is scheduled to wrap up by mid-November for the holiday shopping season.

“We’re looking at a pretty tight construction timeline,” Nagy said.

Peterson, who owns four Peterson’s convenience stores, is waging a campaign against the project. He testified before Prosper Portland’s board June 14, and then again at City Council on June 21. He has distributed a press release saying Prosper Portland is “out to gentrify Portland with taxpayer dollars,” and is gathering petition signatures.

“To say, ‘Hey, you’re out of there,’ is just not fair,” Peterson told Prosper Portland commissioners. “A small business that’s been successful for 32 years should get some credit.”

Prosper Portland officials said they first met with the SmartPark garage tenants in February 2016 to let them know of the renovations and eventual evictions. They also shared information on urban renewal dollars that may be available if the businesses moved into an urban renewal area.

The revamped retail spaces will be offered at highest priority to businesses owned by women or minorities, Prosper Portland officials said.

“The configuration of the spaces is going to change; they’re going to become smaller and much more focused on entrepreneurs, emerging small businesses and folks who have made that leap to their first brick-and-mortar store,” said Shawn Uhlman, Prosper Portland spokesman.

Leasing provisions for the renovated spaces prohibit alcohol-to-go businesses and businesses with three or more locations. Peterson has four convenience stores, which sell alcohol to go.

“It’s written in a way to weed us out,” Peterson said. “There are segments somewhere that think we’re not the right kind of business, and our customers are not the right kind customers.”

Peterson said he’s optimistic the City Council heard his pleas.

“I think we got a good hearing,” he said. “They very much were listening, and I appreciated that.”

The post Store owner fighting parking garage renovation appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The project to improve the city-owned SmartPark garage at Southwest 10th Avenue and Yamhill Street returned before Portland City Council this week, and an architect was chosen and a collaborative building approach approved.

The council on Wednesday approved two measures – one authorizing a contract with FFA Architecture and Interiors to begin designing the $25 million project, and the other to approve use of the construction manager-general contractor alternative delivery method (in Oregon, public entities must prove the need to use a method other than the traditional low-bid method).

Officials said the CM-GC method will lead to more accurate cost estimates as well as better design and communication between the city and the project team. Both measures passed unanimously and with little discussion from the council.

The downtown building has 799 parking spaces and first-floor restaurants and shops. The project is intended to preserve the building and improve the retail area. The garage nets the city $1.2 million annually, but rents for the retail spaces are below market rate because the building needs extensive repairs and maintenance.

The property’s future has been uncertain for most of the past decade. In 2008, the Portland Development Commission was prepared to move ahead with a plan to raze the building and allow developer John Carroll of Carroll Investments to build a mixed-use mid-rise replacement.

Officials hope to pursue Parksmart green garage certification for the renovation.

“It’s the equivalent of LEED, for garages,” Portland Bureau of Transportation project manager Chris Armes said.

An intergovernmental agreement with the PDC was approved in June. City staffers will now work to finalize construction specifications before returning before the council next summer to approve a guaranteed maximum price with the selected contractor. Construction would start in the fall and take approximately one year.

FFA has listed partners it intends to work with on the project, including engineering firms KPFF, Akana Inc. and Cundiff, and lighting designer O-LLC.

The post Architect set for parking garage renovation appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A renovation of the city-owned SmartPark parking garage at Southwest Yamhill Street and 10th Avenue is planned, but funding is not approved yet.

Dave Benson, parking services group manager for the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), told the City Council on Wednesday that redevelopment of the seven-story building has been considered for more than a decade. He asked the council to approve an ordinance to provide $5 million for the project.

The hearing did not conclude on Wednesday; it will resume at the City Council’s July 15 meeting.

The balance of the renovation’s $25 million cost will be underwritten by the Portland Development Commission‘s garage revenue and debt financing fund, said John Brady, director of communications for PBOT.

The renovation will take about a year to design and another year to build, with construction scheduled for completion by the end of 2018, Brady said. The city is currently in negotiations with FFA Architecture and Interiors to handle the design, he added.

The garage won’t shut down altogether during construction, Benson said. Instead, one or two floors at a time will be closed. However, plans call for ground-level retail spaces to close for an entire year.

The 799-space parking garage garners the city about $1.2 million annually, but the retail spaces – 28,000 square feet in total – are costing the city between $80,000 and $100,000 each year because of low rents, Benson said. Retailers pay below market rate because the building needs extensive repairs and maintenance, he said.

“The project scope is to take care of the general and deferred maintenance and take care of seismic remediation,” he said.

The city has had three engineering studies performed on the building, Benson said, and all revealed the same problems.

“There is fatigue in the holes for the sky bridge bolts across that leads to Target, there’s wear on the corbels or end beams and there’s concrete cracks and rust stains on the steel deck diaphragms, all of which will be remediated,” he said.

Seismic improvements would protect life and safety in the event of an earthquake, Benson said, but not necessarily ensure continued functionality of the building. That concerned Commissioner Amanda Fritz.

“We’re paying $25 million and we don’t know if this will be up after the ‘big one?’ ” she asked.

“That depends on how you define the ‘big one,’ ” Benson said. “The problem with all hazards, for things that will absolutely stand up no matter what, are pretty high engineering standards.”

“How much will that cost?” Fritz asked.

“I have no idea,” Benson responded.

Chris Armes, project manager for the city, then explained that studies showed that the stairs on the building’s four corners would be most at risk if a sizable earthquake were to occur.

“The stairs are the major hazardous piece in the case of a seismic event and they will be replaced and relocated,” she said.

Commissioner Nick Fish said that after an earthquake, functionality is more important for structures like hospitals than parking garages.

“Parking garages are not so essential that they would require the highest level of retrofit when you have limited resources,” he said.

Later in the meeting, Doug Peterson, owner of Peterson’s Convenience Store, which operates in a ground-level space in the garage building, said he had commissioned his own seismic study conducted by structural engineer Franz Rad at Portland State University. That study, he said, showed that seismic retrofitting alone would cost between $5 million and $9 million.

Peterson added that he didn’t believe retail operations would need to shut down for an entire year.

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The Portland Bureau of Transportation has moved a step closer to picking a new company to run parking garages in the SmartPark system.

The agency on Wednesday issued a “notice of intent to negotiate and award” the contract for the six garages to Central Parking System, headquartered in Nashville, Tenn.

The company operates more than 2,500 parking facilities in 40 states and has offices across the country, including one in the Rose City.

“We’ve been in Portland for several years now and we have some small lots in the marketplace, but this will be a big contract for us in that location,” said Chip Manning, Central Parking System’s senior vice president.

The final fee structure hasn’t been released yet, and there are still several details to work out as negotiations move forward. Operation fees will come out of income collected from customers using the garages, Manning said.

The current contract is held by Star Park LLC. The company, which has run the garages since 2004, collects about $625,000 a year in management fees, said Dan Anderson, a spokesman for PBOT.

Star Park “decreased expenses by 32 percent and increased gross revenues by 6.1 percent” with a “positive net revenue impact of approximately $1.6 million for the city as of June 2005,” according to the most recent information on its website.

An independent evaluation committee, which included representatives from downtown retail groups, unanimously selected Central Parking System from applicants that responded to a request for proposals on Sept. 24.

The company must provide “broad-based parking management services for the operation, maintenance, janitorial and administration of the parking garage assets in a manner that will provide the greatest degree of financial control to the city while providing superior levels of customer service to its users,” according to the RFP.

PBOT had to restart the application process after issues of fairness were raised when the initial request for proposals was issued in the spring, Anderson said.

Central Parking System also won that bid.

“We are excited and delighted to have been selected in both rounds,” Manning said.

The new contract must still be approved by City Council, which will discuss it at a meeting next month.

The committee noted that it chose Central Parking System in part because of the company’s objective to partner with local businesses to improve marketing and other services, and its plan to provide on-site staffing for the garages at all times.

The six garages include the First and Jefferson garage, the Third and Alder garage, the Fourth and Yamhill garage, the 10th and Yamhill garage, the Natio and Davis garage, and O’Bryant Square parking. They have a total of 3,825 spaces.

Star Park has about 50 employees working at the garages. Central Parking System will try to first hire workers from that pool when the contract switches, if those workers are interested, Manning said.

The application process would then be opened up to new workers, he added.

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The Portland Development Commission on Wednesday approved a preliminary agreement to allow developer John Carroll of Carroll Investments to raze a city SmartPark garage and replace it with a mid-rise, mixed-use building.

The garage, located at Southwest 10th Avenue and Yamhill Street, would be replaced by a $160 million tower with 16 floors of residential or hotel space, four floors of office space, eight floors of parking and 27,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The project is also required to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified silver or higher.

The development would reduce the amount of parking available at the site from 800 to 600 spaces. The city said it would cover $25 million to $30 million for the project, which is almost the same cost as renovating the existing garage.

Construction wouldn’t begin on the project for another few years, but a formal development contract is expected to be drafted in 18 months.

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