Elected officials and project partners gathered Tuesday for the grand opening of Cathedral Village Apartments, a 110-unit affordable housing complex in North Portland.

The 1.21-acre development is at 6520 N. Salem Ave., near the St. Johns town center. It’s within walking distance of restaurants, retail shops, grocery stores, schools and more. Cathedral Park and the Cathedral Park Trail are two blocks away.

Cathedral Village was developed by Related Northwest in partnership with nonprofit Catholic Charities of Oregon. Michael Willis and Associates (MWA) was the architect and LMC Construction was the general contractor for the $38.06 million project. Construction began in January 2021 and completed in August 2022.

The project was constructed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the team had to overcome labor shortages, cost escalations and slow procurement, said Stef Kondor, senior vice president of development for Related Northwest.

“To be able to get through to the other side with this project feels like a significant accomplishment,” she said. “Seeing families excited to move in makes all the adversity and challenges worth it.”

The four-story building has studios, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units. They range from 384 square feet for a studio to 1,051 square feet for a three-bedroom apartment. Rents range from $519-$1,576 per month.

There are 37 total units for people making up to 30 percent of area median income. Eight of those are designated Permanent Supportive Housing units intended to serve chronically homeless individuals. The remaining 73 units are for people making up to 60 percent of area median income.

“Creating a safe environment to stabilize vulnerable individuals is achieved through design of the housing and the supportive programs offered at the site and connecting these residents to greater services through our network of relationships,” Kondor said.

Common area amenities occupy 7,000 square feet and include a community room with a kitchen, shared laundry space, a teen room, a music studio, a courtyard with barbecue area, a tot lot with a children’s garden, and bicycle parking.

Cathedral Village was designed and built to exceed code standards by at least 20 percent, leading to lower operating costs, including electricity and water bills. The building also has rooftop solar panels.

The development received provisional Earth Advantage platinum certification. Earth Advantage Multifamily is a streamlined green building rating system for residential and residential majority mixed-use commercial buildings. The standard is based on five pillars of performance: energy, health, land, materials, and water. To receive certification, buildings must meet minimum resource efficiency performance thresholds.

Cathedral Village Apartments received funding support from the Portland Housing Bureau, the 2016 Portland affordable housing bond, Oregon Housing & Community Services, Red Stone Equity Partners, Umpqua Bank, The Collins Foundation, the Hedco Foundation, and PGE.

Vibe of Portland, a nonprofit that empowers Oregon’s youth through music and art, will host after-school music programs for school-age residents inside a new teaching space that includes a recording studio.

Some units are available for rent. People interested in being added to the waiting list can do so by visiting and then filling out the ‘Contact Us’ form. They can also stop by the Cathedral Village office or call 971-416-6719.

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Construction crews have broken ground in Portland’s St. Johns neighborhood on a 110-unit affordable housing development. Cathedral Village will house low and very low-income families as well as people either chronically homeless or at risk of homelessness.

The four-story building is being erected on a 1.2-acre lot at 8614 N. Crawford St. The site is within walking distance of Cathedral Park, grocery stores and retail outlets.

Related Northwest and Catholic Charities of Oregon are co-owners of the project. MWA Architects is the architect, and LMC Construction is the contractor.

The building will hold one-, two-, and three-bedroom units ranging from 384 square feet to 1,051 square feet. It will also feature a community room with a kitchen, a shared laundry, a teen room, a courtyard with a barbecue area, a “tot lot” with a garden for children, and bicycle parking.

The building’s exterior will be a brick skin with metal cladding; an art installation will be added to the panels facing Crawford Street. The building’s other side will have views of the St. Johns Bridge.

“I think it’ll be a handsome building when done,” said Stef Kondor, vice president of development at Related Northwest.

The location was selected as part of an effort to ensure there are affordable housing opportunities throughout the city, said Travis Phillips, director of community development and housing at Catholic Charities.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit midway through the design phase, Phillips said, and main elements had already been established. The design team then looked at how to make sure residents would be able to both live and work in their units.

“I think that (need for individual space) elevated this year with the pandemic – the fact that more people are spending more time in their individual spaces,” he said.

Many meetings took place, Phillips said, concerning whether a cabinet would be installed in one place, or shelving units would go in another.

Affordable housing units often have limited storage space in individual rooms, Kondor said. A big initiative, she added, was to make sure each unit would have enough pantry and linen storage.

Team members also spent a long time configuring the community spaces, Kondor said. Wi-Fi was included in all of those spaces to make them more inviting and able to facilitate children’s schoolwork.

Catholic Charities will provide residential services and support within the building. It was important for those spaces to be placed near the community ones, Phillips said, in order to encourage face-to-face interactions between staffers and tenants.

A point of emphasis for Kondor, she said, was location of building entry and exit points allowing high visibility to ensure security. The design team used a crime-prevention-through-environmental-design model to make sure residents would feel safe. Landscape and lighting were given special attention. There will be no hidden corners, and security cameras will be placed in all common areas, Kondor said.

The aim of the support services within the building is to help people adjust to living inside if they’ve been homeless. Staffers also will help tenants understand the health care coverage system and how to navigate it.

With Cathedral Park hosting one of the longest-running jazz festivals west of the Mississippi River, music is an integral part of the St. Johns neighborhood, Kondor said. The project team wanted that to be reflected in Cathedral Village with a music room. It’s also working with a local high school to provide an after-school music program for children.

The development’s estimated cost is $37.7 million. Funding is coming from Umpqua Bank, Red Stone Equity Partners, the 2016 Portland affordable housing bond, Oregon Housing and Community Services, The Collins Foundation and the Hedco Foundation.

The project team is adhering to PHB (Portland Housing Bureau) green building standards and aiming for Earth Advantage gold certification.

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Take TriMet’s 4 bus from downtown Portland to St. Johns, and the trip serves as a rolling tour of the gradual gentrification of North Portland.

Riders travel along trendy Mississippi Avenue, with its high-end boutiques like Paxton Gate, which sells exotic taxidermy, and then onto Albina Avenue, a historically African-American neighborhood that has seen an influx of new residents and multifamily construction.

The bus line ends at St. Johns. There, in the shadow of the iconic, spearmint-green bridge spanning the Willamette River, a transformation is about to take place.

The North Portland neighborhood, long home to industrial sites and a racially and economically diverse population, is poised to see dense multifamily and commercial development of the type that has already transformed many of Portland’s close-in Eastside neighborhoods.

Two developers are responsible for a batch of new projects: Mainland Northwest, the Portland office of a Nashville, Tennessee-based developer; and Farid Bolouri, a local dentist turned developer. They’re following in the footsteps of PHK Development. Its Marvel 29, which opened in 2015, appears in retrospect to have laid the groundwork for changes to come.

Mainland Northwest is focused on several blocks near the Willamette River.

“We’d been looking for opportunity sites where everyone else was – the Southeast, Northeast, Interstate,” said Brian Wilson, a partner in the Portland office.

Then, a broker told him about property in St. Johns.

“It is one of the last close-in, affordable neighborhoods that is walkable, with good services, that hasn’t been overbuilt,” he said.

Mainland Northwest is planning to scrape the Steel Hammer site – 14.5 riverfront acres, including 8.5 acres of buildable land – for future development. Industrial businesses such as Columbia Forge & Machine Works are moving out, and Mainland Northwest is forging ahead with plans for mixed-use construction.

Ahead of the large Steel Hammer parcels, Mainland Northwest will develop two other blocks with multifamily projects.

A brief history of St. Johns

St. Johns was once a town unto itself. James Johns settled in the area in 1844 after moving from Linnton, according to the St. Johns Neighborhood Association. By 1849, 12 families were living in the area.

The proposed Steel Hammer development site is, according to Wilson, where Johns once landed his ferry.

St. Johns was recognized by the Oregon Legislature as a municipality in 1902. It was annexed by the city of Portland in 1915.

Marvel 29

Patrick Kessi, founder and president of PHK Development Inc., developed an affinity for St. Johns after exploring the neighborhood as a University of Portland student. He eventually raised his family in the neighborhood.

“It seems like it’s its own city out there,” he said. “I really like that community feel, and the sense of community there. I felt a quality development would be well-received by the community.”

In 2014, PHK completed Marvel 29 at the keystone intersection of North Philadelphia Avenue and Ivanhoe Street. The 127,720-square-foot building has 165 multifamily units and two retail spaces of about 900 square feet each that are occupied by Hoplandia and Pizza Nostra.

PHK still owns Marvel 29, which has received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Marvel 29 was the first modern, mixed-use development with underground parking in the neighborhood. The project was leased in about six months.

“It leased up faster than what we expected,” Kessi said.

Who is behind Mainland Northwest?

Mainland Northwest, a limited liability company, is a local subsidiary of The Mainland Companies LLC. Wilson and Ben Wood are the Portland-based partners.

Wilson is a native Portlander who previously worked at his family’s real estate firm, Kalberer Company. He has also been politically active, serving on the Portland Housing Advisory Commission and, in 2014, mounting an unsuccessful campaign against Jules Bailey for a spot on the Multnomah County Commission.

Wood previously co-founded and served as managing director of Promontory Healthcare Cos. He joined Mainland through a connection to the company’s CEO, Kenneth Larish – the pair met while attending Lewis & Clark Law School.

Mainland is backed by additional private investors, Wilson said.

North Crawford Street

Mainland Northwest is awaiting a building permit to begin construction on a full block of North Crawford Street between John and Charleston avenues. Plans for the 80,000-square-foot development call for 101 units, including 11 townhomes and 11 two-bedroom units. The balance will be split evenly between one-bedroom and studio apartments. A landscaped public plaza will be included. Pavilion Construction is the general contractor, and STACK Architecture is responsible for the design.

The vacant lot is fenced off, with dense brush covering the site.

Mainland Northwest expects to have a building permit in hand by late September, and then begin construction.

North Richmond Avenue

A similar building is planned on North Richmond Avenue with approximately 80 apartment units.

“That’s on a fast track,” Wilson said.

SERA Architects is designing the project, and R&H Construction has been selected to build it.

Steel Hammer site

Mainland Northwest is in the process of buying the 14.5-acre site along North Crawford Street from Tom Leaptrott, who owns Columbia Forge & Machine Works and Steel Hammer Properties LLC. The transaction will be split into two pieces because of liability related to the area’s Superfund designation. Mainland expects to take ownership of the first parcel by the end of the year, Wilson said.

GBD Architects is at work on a riparian redevelopment master plan for the site, Wilson said. The site is targeted for significant residential and commercial development.

In 2014, Leaptrott put the property up for sale and petitioned the city of Portland to change the zoning to allow for mixed-use development.

Mainland Northwest is looking to develop the forlorn parcels, Wilson said.

“There’s a desire to find dirt that other people can’t make sense of,” he said. “We want to bring our particular vision of not impacting the surrounding historic neighborhood by not displacing people.”

Industry is no longer dependent on using riverfront property. Redeveloping it makes sense, Wilson said.

“It’s not big enough for industrial users to use,” he said. “We don’t use the river that way anymore.”

Mainland Northwest has committed to building a stretch of the Willamette River Greenway across the property. Union Pacific Railroad tracks also run adjacent to the property. Wilson said he’s had initial conversations with railroad officials.

With the three sites, and possible further development in St. Johns, Mainland Northwest is looking to build hundreds of apartments.

“It could be, ballpark, 1,000 units,” Wood said.

That may not be all: Mainland Northwest is also considering other properties in the area.

“We have a couple of other opportunities we’re kicking tires on,” Wilson said.

Who is Farid Bolouri?

A co-founder of Portland Dental Group, Bolouri previously made news when he developed in Sellwood a four-story mixed-use building that required demolition in 2013 of a 107-year-old building that housed the Black Cat Tavern.

In 2014, Bolouri purchased for $395,000 a St. Johns property at North Lombard Street and Charleston Avenue. He has moved forward with development of The Union at St. Johns – a four-story mixed-use building.

“It was a very controversial project in the neighborhood because the city actually vacated public property to him,” said Lindsay Jensen, executive director of St. Johns Main Street. She wrote the city a letter in support of the project.

Bolouri did not respond to messages seeking comment on The Union at St. Johns.

The Union at St. Johns

In a walkable area near several eateries and bars, a construction crane looms over a massive hole in the ground. The block is the future site of The Union at St. Johns, which will have 20,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space topped by 106 residential units. Plans also call for 89 below-ground parking spaces. Alan Jones of Jones Architecture designed the project, and R&H Construction is building it. Construction began earlier this summer.

What’s next?

St. Johns has seen a surge of new businesses move in. Many are in a warehouse that formerly housed Columbia Sportswear. It now hosts Occidental Brewing, a German-inspired brewery that this summer opened a wursthaus restaurant; Refuge PDX, which does special effects for the TV show “Grimm;” and Something Borrowed, which rents numerous items for weddings and other events.

The industrial area near the bridge is home to an idiosyncratic mix of businesses, including an outboard motor repair shop.

Some are leaving ahead of the coming development. Leaptrott is moving Columbia Forge & Machine Works to Washougal, Washington.

“I love St. Johns, but the city of Portland is awful to do business in,” he said, citing rampant homelessness, excessive regulation and an unfriendly business environment.

Leaptrott said he needs private security around the metalworking shop. Homeless camps sit nearby.

Many of St. Johns’ incumbent landowners are looking to sell and move on, Wilson said.

“A lot of these guys have been here for decades, and they’re on the glide path to figure out what they’re going to do with their next stage in life,” he said. “It’s a perfect transition.”

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Midsize builder Lease Crutcher Lewis is busy with public and private work in the Portland-metro area:

• Work on the $103 million Wizer Block project is under way in Lake Oswego. The controversial redevelopment will include 201 residential units and 42,000 square feet of retail space. Deconstruction of the Wizer shopping center has begun, with construction scheduled to conclude in fall 2017. Opponents have criticized the project for being too bulky and dense. Recently, a challenge of project approval was denied review by the Oregon Supreme Court.

• Lewis is modernizing Roosevelt High School in Portland’s St. Johns neighborhood. Demolition and site work for the $65 million project began in the summer. Construction of a new classroom building, a performing arts center and an athletic complex is under way. The historic auditorium building is undergoing a seismic upgrade and renovation to accommodate a new library and classrooms. Work should wrap up in fall 2017. The project is one of three major high school modernizations funded by a Portland Public Schools bond. The architect is Bassetti Architects.

• The Oregon Zoo‘s $48 million, 6.25-acre Elephant Lands habitat project, which began in February 2012, will finish later this fall. The Metro project includes an elephant viewing area and modifications to the zoo railway. The local architect is SRG, in partnership with CLR Design of Philadelphia. The project is the first in Oregon to incorporate cross-laminated timber, and the largest of those funded by a $125 million bond passed in 2008.

• Lewis is constructing a nine-floor tenant improvement for Stoel Rives at the Park Avenue West skyscraper. The project involves renovating 135,000 square feet to accommodate a two-floor conference center, five floors to serve attorneys and two floors to serve administrators. The construction value is $15 million.

• Lewis in spring 2016 will start a 175,000-square-foot headquarters renovation and addition for SAIF, Oregon’s not-for-profit state-chartered workers’ compensation insurance company. The project will include a seismic upgrade, a building façade modernization and a major addition.

Lease Crutcher Lewis in 2013 was the city’s 10th-largest general contractor, with $93.6 million in local billings. CEO Bart Ricketts splits his workweek between the firm’s Portland office above Tasty n Alder at 550 S.W. 12th Ave. and its Seattle office. The firm self-performs all concrete work and relies on predominantly union carpenters, laborers and operators, according to Lewis Marketing Director Janice Westcott. – Garrett Andrews

Builder’s Choice is a new 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects being tackled by local architecture, engineering and construction firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ construction reporter Garrett Andrews at 503-802-7226 or garrett.andrews@djcOregon.com.

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The St. Johns neighborhood feels it has been burned by developers before, says Joe Purkey, an architect who lives there, but now people are getting more involved about what goes up in their community.

A good example was a July 7 between about 60 St. Johns area business owners and architect Alan Jones of Jones Architecture. Jones is working on a design for a three-building, mixed-use project in the business district of St. Johns. It will include 100 apartments, 20,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space and underground parking at North Lombard Street and North Charleston Avenue.

The project, to be called The Union at St. Johns, will be mostly small apartments and may include some affordable housing. Construction could start as early as January. Shapiro Didway is the landscape architect for the project. The developer is Milwaukie dentist Dr. Farid Bolouri, who also was at the meeting.

Purkey said businesses and residents in St. Johns have gotten more involved in asking questions about the design of buildings rising in the area since he feels they “got burned” when a large storage facility was built in the retail center of the neighborhood.

“The storage unit wasn’t the most appropriate thing for downtown retail, and community leadership wasn’t well-versed on how the process worked,” Purkey said. “They were pretty upset.”

Another project the neighbor had some gripes about was the construction of the Marvel 29 apartments at the foot of the St. John’s Bridge, according to Purkey. The project met the design rule for the neighborhood of no building over 50 feet wide by putting up strips of bricks every 50 feet.

“The city of Portland accepted the architect’s argument that the brick stripes break up the building, but it really doesn’t,” Purkey said.

AMICABLE DISCUSSION

While Jones was peppered with questions from the audience at July 7 meeting, it ended amicably, with both sides agreeing to meet again to continue the discussion.

More meetings between developers and citizens can keep development surprises from being sprung on a community, Purkey said.

One of the biggest concerns at the St. John’s meeting was the effect of traffic interruption on businesses along Lombard Street, but Jones said those would be minimal and the street will be kept open during construction. People also asked questions about bike lanes, traffic signals and more.

“We’re not reconfiguring any streets, but we are reconfiguring some traffic signals,” Jones said.

Denny Hassler, a salesman at The Man’s Shop, asked if Jones could provide a construction schedule that could be shared with other St. Johns merchants. He said business owners would also like to see some signage directing people to the downtown shopping area.

Hassler said he is concerned about traffic slowdowns affecting business.

“Our customers aren’t going to ride a bike to buy a suit,” he said.

Hassler also asked the developer for email communications about when and where any disruptive work would be going on.

“We will give you a week’s notice, at least,” owner Bolouri promised.

The work will include removing a slip lane on Lombard Street and relocating the right turn lane, which might take a couple of months, Jones said, but the street will be kept open and will only close for one- or two-hour intervals.

Construction will be in two phases, Bolouri said, starting with work on the right turn lane. Care will be taken about when big trucks make deliveries so as not to disturb the neighborhood, he said. Jones also noted that the construction site is near a school and a library, but the work will be kept out of sight behind a fence.

Bolouri said he understood the concerns of business owners.

“I enjoy development, but I’m a dentist and I’m out of business if my patients can’t get in and out,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is surprise (anyone).”

Jones said he and Bolouri plan to meet several more times with business owners and will continue to meet with the St. John’s Neighborhood Association about the project.

Jones said a regular practice during design review is to have at least one meeting with neighborhood representatives, but he believes in doing more.

“We expect to present for design review in September 2015, with construction commencing the first quarter of 2016,” Jones said.

PRESERVING CHARACTER

Purkey said he and others have gotten involved in engaging developers and designers about future projects because they don’t want to see their neighborhood’s “streetcar era architectural style” turned into something else. He said other neighborhoods, such as along North Mississippi Avenue and Division Street, were “changed drastically” by developers.

“The residents lost their neighborhood to a completely new neighborhood,” he said. “St. John’s residents have been watching (other developments) and want to make sure our community culture and architectural character remains intact as much as possible as growth happens,” he said.

“Developers coming into St. Johns really need to be answerable to the community and hopefully to other communities throughout Portland.”

So far, Jones and Bolouri have been extremely cooperative in working with St. Johns residents, Purkey said.

“They have been pretty willing to meet with the community and the community encouraged them through letters and lots of emails,” he said. “We are pretty engaged at this point.”

That only makes sense, Purkey said, because more communication can lead to less conflict between developers and residents.

The Marvel 29 apartments became a “tipping point” that led more citizens to get involved with development planning, he said.

Although plans are not yet finalized, business owners attending the July 7 meeting said the design so far for Bolouri’s project seems to fit into the character of the neighborhood.

The three buildings will each be set back at varying distances from the sidewalk along Lombard Street, Purkey said, although there will still be a long wall along Charleston Avenue.

“It is not perfect but better than Marvel 29 at breaking up the massing,” Purkey said.

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A grand opening was held last month for the newly-completed Marvel 29, a four-story, 165-unit apartment project in St. Johns from PHK Development. The Ankrom Moisan Architects-designed building is located on a full block near the eastern approach to the St. Johns Bridge and features one- and two-bedroom apartments, studios, and live/work units along with ground-floor retail space. Walsh Construction served as the project’s general contractor.

The building’s modern industrial design was intended to both draw younger renters and aesthetically appeal to longtime neighborhood residents. Developer Patrick Kessi also turned to the neighborhood for advice on names for the building before settling on Marvel 29, which serves as an homage to the St. Johns Bridge.

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A mixed-use project planned on North Lombard Street is expected to take advantage of a “gateway” location.

Alan Jones, principal of Portland-based Jones Architecture, on Jan. 9 applied to the Portland Bureau of Development Services for early assistance with plans to construct a four-story building with 100 apartments, ground-floor retail space and between 70 and 80 below-grade parking stalls at 8247 N. Lombard St.

Farid Bolouri in August 2013 purchased the approximately 38,000-square-foot lot with plans to demolish the four existing buildings to make way for the new development, Jones said. Bolouri recently completed a smaller, similar project in Sellwood.

“I think (Bolouri) sees a lot of similarities between Sellwood and St. Johns,” Jones said. “The great thing about this site is that it’s really where Lombard changes into a more pedestrian-oriented street. It’s a real gateway into St. Johns.”

The building will have a mix of mostly studios along with one- and two-bedroom apartments, Jones said.

“We haven’t decided the exact matrix of the units,” he said. “I think (Bolouri) is interested in the University of Portland student market, but also wants to offer some larger units.”

The building will likely be three wood-framed levels on a concrete podium, though Jones said that the possibility of all above-ground components being wood has not been ruled out.

“We’d really like to do the whole thing out of wood so the first-floor retail spaces can have the wood characteristics, like ceiling beams,” Jones said. “We’re really trying to be good urban neighbors and look at how we can make the building really fit well into the context of the rest of the St. Johns neighborhood.”

The building will have approximately 17,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

“It’s being designed as flexible space that the developer would like to see as a mixture of two larger restaurant spaces and about a half-dozen smaller retail spaces,” Jones said.

The area largely has single-family residences; however, Jones noted that Bolouri’s proposed 100-unit project is following the new, 165-unit Marvel 29 near the St. Johns bridgehead.

“There’s a great opportunity for growth in St. Johns,” he said. “It’s got a great downtown-like fabric, and I think these projects are going to change the neighborhood quite a bit.”

A pre-application conference is scheduled for Feb. 4. Jones said the team would like to start construction this summer and deliver in summer 2016.

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Patrick Kessi made a name for himself in the Portland development scene with projects like the 937 condominium building and the Thurman Street Lofts, which were built by his previous firm, W&K Development.

Now, Kessi is founder and president of PHK Development, the company that’s behind the Marvel 29 project under construction in the St. Johns area. When it opens at the end of the year, the block-long building will feature 165 one- or two-bedroom apartments, as well as studio apartments, live-work spaces and ground-level retail space.

The retail and live-work spaces run along North Philadelphia Avenue and Ivanhoe Street, which Kessi describes as “active” streets. The building’s ground floor, on two “quiet” streets, will feature apartments, as will the second and third levels. More apartments, with terraces and patios, will be located around a center courtyard.

The project also offers a feature that’s become somewhat of a rarity in Portland. The building has below-ground parking, with a space for each unit. The decision to include parking was the result of a series of discussions Kessi had with residents, business owners and the St. Johns Main Street Coalition in the neighborhood. Those conversations began long before the first shovel of dirt was turned.

Kessi also turned to area residents when it came time to name the project.

“We wanted a name that was fun and quirky, that represented the neighborhood while paying homage to its icon, the bridge,” he said. “We tested several names on the residents. A marvel is something that causes wonder, admiration and astonishment, as the bridge does.”

As for 29, it is the atomic number on the periodic table of elements for copper – the metal that makes up the bridge’s spires.

The existing neighborhood and residents even played an important role in the design of Marvel 29, said Jennifer Jenkins, the manager for Ankrom Moisan Architects, which served as architect for the project.

The area of St. Johns where the project is located features a mix of longtime residents and a new influx of younger residents. The key to success of the project – and its acceptance – was to find the right balance.

“We wanted to invigorate the neighborhood, without stepping on toes,” Jenkins said. “We’re trying to make a historic nod to what’s already there, while also making sure it’s a place that (a range of age groups) will want to live.”

The solution lay in a facade that is mainly brick, especially on the two “active” streets, to blend with nearby buildings that include a city hall and a police station. A curved corner of copper reflects back to the spires on the St. Johns Bridge and provides as accent that ties everything together, Jenkins said.

Rents for the live-work units, which run about 900 square feet, will range from approximately $1,400 to $1,700. The apartments vary in size from 450 to 850 square feet, with rents starting in the $800 range and extending to the $1,600 range.

Kessi thinks the live-work units, which boast a side-by-side configuration, are unique for the St. Johns area. Leasing for the units, apartments and retail space will begin soon, he said.

Marvel 29

Location: North Philadelphia Avenue and Ivanhoe Street, in the St. Johns area

Description: 165 one- and two-bedroom apartments, studios, live-work units, and retail space

Developer: PHK Development

Architect: Ankrom Moisan Architects

General contractor: Walsh Construction

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Portland-based Realtor Debbie Thomas and Boly:Welch co-owner Patricia Welch have purchased the Jower’s Building on North Lombard Street in St. Johns. They’re planning to convert it into office, retail and possibly residential space.

The $528,000 transaction closed June 24, said Todd Peres, a broker representing Lombard 8803 LLC (Thomas and Welch).

“Debbie is sort of a Portland powerhouse and has been for over 20 years,” he said. “The fact that they’re looking at St. Johns and the potential for things to happen … gives it a sort of cachet.”

The partners are working with Kevin Cavenaugh, who owns an adjacent property and plans to build a mixed-use development, to bring the right mix of uses to the site, Peres said.

One option for the two-story, 15,000-square-foot building, he said, would be a bakery – identified through market testing as a desire of residents. Other options could include a mix of retail and office space with four apartment units upstairs.

The building for many years was owned by the Jower family. Its clothing retail business operated there for about seven decades, Peres said, and served mostly dock workers in the historically blue collar neighborhood.

Some seismic work and a roof replacement have taken place, but significant plumbing and HVAC work needs to be done, he said.

“The previous owners really gutted the place,” he said. “It’s actually a really cool, raw shell now with exposed walls, brick archways and exposed structure inside.”

Construction would take about six months, Peres said.

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Before the ivy-covered St. Johns City Hall building was constructed in 1905, city councilors met in a smaller building at 8621 N. Lombard St.

The 3,815-square-foot retail property is anchored by a home furnishings store, and also holds a specialty beer and wine shop, a children’s clothing store and an Internet retailer. But 114 years ago, its use was entirely different.

“On the ground floor was where you paid your parking tickets for the horse and buggy,” joked Tim Walters, the property’s owner and a principal broker for RE/MAX Equity Group.

St. Johns was becoming a thriving industrial hub when the structure was built in 1898. Several shipping companies, and lumber and wool mills were staking claims along the city’s waterfront, and the electric streetcar was being extended down its streets.

Walters said the building on North Lombard Street served as city hall for just a couple of years before a fire destroyed the second floor. In 1901, the property reopened as a hardware store called St. Johns Hardware and Paint.

In the early 2000s, the hardware store’s owners retired, and the building sat vacant for several years. Walters bought it in 2007 and gave it a full renovation, with new wiring, plumbing, heating, finishes and flooring.

He’s looking to sell it for $699,000. But he may change his mind because a new hotel and restaurant are set to open across the street, and two multifamily projects are in the works nearby.

“If building rents keep going up and up over there, I might just keep that building,” Walters said.

For more information, contact Walters at 503-495-5780.

Block by Block is a weekly look at commercial real estate around Portland. Send suggestions for properties to BlockxBlock@djcOregon.com.

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