The Portland Design Commission gave conditional approval to plans for a mixed-use building with 138 residential units at Southwest 16th Avenue and Burnside Street. Ankrom Moisan Architects’ design for the site, which currently houses an auto dealership, was OK’d by a 4-0 vote on Thursday; Commissioner Tad Savinar abstained.

“I think there is a lot that is very handsome about this building,” Commissioner Julie Livingston said. “There is a lot of strength in the composition and this will be a strong addition to the Goose Hollow �Ա𾱲�����ǰ���Ǵǻ�.”

Wood Partners is developing the project, which now has a design significantly different than one presented during a previous design advice hearing.

Approval came with two conditions. The first is to bring the garage door on Alder Street 18 inches to front of the building. The second is to include a half break reveal on the vertical joints on the west wall.

Early in the discussions on Thursday, the commission raised concerns about the use of balconies, oriel window designs and the orientation of ground-floor retail space and sidewalks.

“Doing a 15-foot sidewalk will make it a whole lot more pedestrian friendly than it is now,” Commissioner Don Vallaster said. “It’s not a very retail friendly location. You have fast traffic. Anything that happens there is going to be a whole lot more satisfactory going up on 16th and on Alder Street.”

There was also discussion of a concentration of garage and utility apparatus on the wall along Alder Street.

“I count about 49 feet of blank wall conditions on the back side,” Savinar said. “That may be an exaggeration, but it is certainly more than 35.”

Though most commissioners questioned the amount of space devoted to the utilities along that wall, they accepted it.

“I agree that there is a lot of area given to backhouse functions,” Livingston said. “However, it is nicely composed and fits within the architectural systems that have been developed overall. It’s not just thrown together. It’s considered.”

Also on Thursday:

Park Avenue West sign

On its second try, Ambrosini Design gained approval from the Portland Design Commission for a Stoel Rives sign to hang on the Park Avenue West tower.

The commission voted 4-0 in favor, with Savinar abstaining, for the proposed 92.9-square-foot sign. Its location was adjusted from earlier plans to go on the building’s horizontal component. The sign will be moved away from the parapet and wiring will be concealed.

Lighting levels were also adjusted to keep the sign from overwhelming the lantern above it.

Overton 15

The commission also approved Vallaster Corl Architects’ design for Overton 15 at 1440 N.W. Overton St. by a vote of 3-1. Savinar voted against approval. The building will include 68 residential units, three retail spaces and ground-level parking.

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A 23-story multifamily project proposed for a parking lot near the Morrison Bridge’s east end is a little closer to city approval.

Urban Asset Advisors is the developer of the Grand Belmont tower at 514 S.E. Belmont Street, and Vallaster Corl Architects is the designer. Portland’s Historic Landmarks Commission – and not the Portland Design Commission – is charged with approving the design because the building is located in the East Portland Grand Avenue Historic District.

The only other high-rise in the district is the 12-story, 1920s-era Weatherly Building on Southeast Morrison Street. The proposed height for the Grand Belmont previously was identified by the Historic Landmarks Commission as a problem. But Chris Jones, project designer with Vallaster Corl, said that at the Grand Belmont’s third design advice hearing March 7 commissioners seemed to be more concerned about the building’s appearance than its height.

Jones said the commission was shown a preferred design for a 23-story tower with 214 residential units, a rooftop common room with an exterior terrace, three ground-floor retail spaces totaling 6,500 square feet and 102 parking spaces in the podium portion. Commissioners were also presented a second option for a 14-story building, he said, but seemed to prefer the taller building.

“Most commissioners expressed support for the taller, more slender scheme,” he said. “But there was much discussion on the exterior skin and how to complement the historic district.”

Jones said commissioners may offer some trade-offs to allow the higher building, but nothing is guaranteed until the design is approved in a formal review.

“They made concessions in terms of height, but said it will be contingent on the level and quality of materials, fenestration patterns, types of windows and how it all works with neighboring resources,” he said.

Jones added that his firm was pleased overall with the advice hearing. He believes the commissioners’ consensus was to allow a floor area ratio (FAR) of 12:1.

“They, by and large, were not pushing back on the big issues of height and FAR,” he said.

Jones said this is the first major project proposed for the East Portland Grand Avenue Historic District since it was established in the 1990s.

“The whole area started to boom in the 1920s as an alternative city, a separate city (from Portland),” he said. “The construction of the Weatherly Building, the landmark our design is responding to, was the last great hurrah of development on the east side before the Great Depression.”

No date has been set for a formal design review before the landmarks commission, Jones said.

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Berkshire Group, a Boston investment company, has purchased the Lower Burnside Lofts apartment building for $18.5 million, ARA Newmark announced Tuesday.

The owner was developer Urban Asset Advisors, which completed the six-story, 63-unit project in June 2015. It was designed by Vallaster Corl Architects, built by Bremik Construction and financed by Banner Bank.

The sale price equates to $521 per square foot. The sale was brokered by ARA Newmark’s Portland office.

Lower Burnside Lofts, at 60 S.E. 10th Ave., is in a Southeast Portland area that is attracting redevelopment. Restaurants such as Le Pigeon, Noble Rot and Burnside Brewing have added amenities to the area.

Lower Burnside Lofts was fully leased by August, according to ARA Newmark.

Only a block away, at 1111 S.E. Sandy Blvd., Urban Development Group of Beaverton is moving forward with Burnside Delta. It’s expected to have 85 residential units and 2,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

“The most appealing thing to the lower Burnside neighborhood is it’s sort of at that doorstep to downtown,” said Robert Black, managing director of ARA Newmark’s Portland office. “It’s got great access, either by car or by bike.”

Newer neighborhood tenants are mixing with long-established manufacturing businesses.

Lower Burnside is “having a real sort of resurgence, especially in the creative office world,” Black said. “It’s got a lot of the factors that these millennials – young, well-educated creatives – are looking for.”

The multifamily market continues to see steady development, with about 5,000 units expected to go online this year in the Portland area, and a similar number in 2017, Black said.

“I see this continuing,” he said.

With rents rising in the suburbs, more projects are being planned in submarkets such as Washington County, along with steady multifamily-unit deliveries in Portland’s urban core, Black said.

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Urban Development Group of Beaverton is moving forward with plans to construct a six-story mixed-use building in Portland at East Burnside Street and Southeast Sandy Boulevard.

Burnside Delta is designed to offer 85 residential units and 2,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space at 1111 S.E. Sandy Blvd. The building site is a triangular block occupied by a large billboard and parking lot. A small restaurant, Michael’s Italian Beef and Sausage Co., is expected to remain.

The ground level would also have 18 vehicle parking spaces and 56 bicycle parking spaces. The building would have a basement level, and feature exterior balconies and a roof deck.

The project is scheduled to return to design review on March 17; an initial hearing was held Feb. 4. Vallaster Corl Architects of Portland is designing the building.

Bureau of Development Services staff, in a Jan. 22 report, recommended project plans be denied. Among other issues, the staff report said the applicant, David Mullens of Urban Development Group, had not provided enough information about the building’s proposed use of tread-plate steel exterior cladding.

BDS staff also recommended more arcade features be included to provide greater protection to pedestrians and to help the building fit in among others in the area.

Mullens and Urban Development Group owner Dennis Sackhoff could not be reached for comment. Sackhoff is also president and CEO of Arbor Custom Homes in Beaverton.

The project’s architect said Burnside Delta should be able to move forward.

“We’ve just got to get the arcade thing sorted out, and then it’s ready to go in terms of putting together the working drawings,” architect Don Vallaster said.

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As an architect with 30 years of experience, Don Vallaster has presented more than a few projects to the Portland Design Commission over the years.

Now he’s sitting on the other side of the table as the newest member of the panel tasked with helping shape the city’s skyline.

Vallaster was nominated to the design commission by City Commissioner Dan Saltzman. He was approved by City Council on Aug. 5 and attended his first meeting Aug. 20. He joins fellow architect Julie Livingston; Tad Savinar, who represents the area of urban design; David Wark, who represents the Regional Arts and Culture Council; at-large representative Jeffrey Simpson; and Ben Kaiser, the land development representative who this week was reappointed to serve on the commission for another four years.

Even with the addition of Vallaster, though, the design commission is still short a member. Keeping the panel’s seats full has been a problem in the past, and filling the position now occupied by Vallaster took longer than originally anticipated, according to Matt Gumm, senior policy adviser for Dan Saltzman, the city commissioner who oversees the Bureau of Development Services and its related commissions, including the design panel.

City Commissioner Amanda Fritz was in charge of the bureau this past May, when Livingston and Vallaster were recommended to her as candidates to fill two empty seats on the panel. Fritz approved adding Livingston, but she rejected Vallaster.

“I’m holding that (second) vacancy because I really wanted someone from an under-represented community to round out our commission membership,” Fritz said at the time.

Vallaster’s name resurfaced for the empty seat, though, when Mayor Charlie Hales appointed Saltzman to oversee the Bureau of Development Services.

“When Commissioner Saltzman was assigned the bureau, he told the mayor the design commission had multiple vacancies and getting a quorum was a challenge,” Gumm said. “So he asked the bureau, ‘Who do you have that would do this challenging volunteer job?’”

After carefully considering applications, Grumm said, Vallaster’s name rose to the top of the pile again.

“He has great experience, has done a lot of professional work and has been before the commission many times,” Grumm said. “It’s got to be a careful process and we need to make the process work and come to decisions in a good way.”

Vallaster said he hopes to bring more sensitivity from a development perspective to the commission, whose members serve on a voluntary basis with no financial compensation. One of the ways he hopes to achieve that is by limiting those notoriously long design commission meetings, which have been known to stretch five hours or more, to a more reasonable duration.

“That’s what made me most nervous about accepting the position,” said Vallaster, who is a founding member of Vallaster Corl Architects. “I have to commit more time than I have, but I’ll see if I can make it work.”

He also would like to find a way to allow projects to move through the entire approve process more quickly

“I would love to see it speeded up if that’s possible to do,” he said. “That would be good for development and good for the city, for both sides of the equation.”

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Plans for a Pearl District mixed-use building and a proposed hotel in Southwest Portland have gained unanimous Portland Design Commission approval.

Design commissioners on Thursday approved with conditions Portland-based Vallaster Corl Architects’ design for Couch 9, a proposed 11-story, mixed-use building, at 115 and 125 Northwest Ninth Ave.

They also fully supported – with slight revisions – a design by Atlanta-based HC Architecture for the 299-room Porter Hotel by Hilton on the former Pendleton Building property at 202-218 S.W. Jefferson St.

Plans for the Couch 9 project, developed by Portland-based Urban Assets Advisors, call for 137 apartments, approximately 8,000-square-feet of commercial space and two levels of underground parking with 87 spaces.

Overall, commissioners said they were impressed with the design for Couch 9 and praised the bright red recessed balconies on portions of the facade. But, as in previous hearing for the project, they expressed lingering reservations with a wall of balconies in varying shades of orange on the proposed building’s west side. As a condition of approving the project, they requested modifications to that façade.

“I still am not comfortable with the west balcony elevation,” Commissioner Tad Savinar said. “It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from what’s on the other two faces.”

During the public testimony portion of the hearing, neighboring residents also raised concerns with plans for that side of the building. The proposed designs for the west side made the building appear cheap and motel-like, neighbors testified. They also worried about seeing clutter from building tenants on the balconies. Several neighbors testified that they didn’t like the pops of bright color and would prefer a more neutral façade.

Vallaster Corl Architects partner Don Vallaster said the design team thought the loud colors would bring a new vibe to that portion of the Pearl District.

“For us, we thought it was time to add a little bit of color and texture to the context of the neighborhood,” he said.

In response to Design Commission feedback at a design review hearing for the project last month, the design team on Thursday presented revisions to the west façade. This included removing the false columns, adding depth to the balconies and modifying the color gradation.

When the design team shared how plans for that part of the building had evolved, several commissioners said they preferred the previous design that they reviewed in March. Savinar, who earlier in the hearing said he couldn’t vote in favor of the project, moved to approve the project on the condition that the west façade again include the false columns between the balconies. This would add more interest to that side of the building, commissioners reasoned.

The commission also requested modifications to the Porter Hotel design before approving the project, developed by Syracuse, N.Y.-based Widewaters Group to be part of Hilton’s Curio brand. Plans for the 16-story, 200,000-square-foot hotel call for a ground floor lobby, restaurant, bar, market and pizza take-out window. Planned amenities include a rooftop restaurant and a basement pool, sauna and fitness area.

Commissioners praised the blue glass mosaic design on building’s main façade, but had worries about also using patterned stone tile for the pilasters on the ground floor. The pattern on the stone tiles was too busy in context with the glass mosaic, Commissioner Guenevere Millius said.

“The conflict I’m seeing is there are too many contrasts,” she said. “That stone wants to hold a big brick building on top.

As a condition of approving the project, commissioners asked the design team to replace the stone tile pilasters with narrower versions made from precast concrete. This revision would help offset the base with the rest of the building, Commission Vice Chairman Ben Kaiser said.

“It makes it feel lighter at the base,” he said. “The precast (concrete) quiets it down and brings attention to glass … because the project has come so far along, I think that would be a great improvement.”

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Preliminary designs for the Hyatt Regency hotel planned near the Oregon Convention Center could better reflect the buildings’ setting, according to the Portland Design Commission.

“It feels very generic,” Commissioner Tad Savinar said during a design advice hearing on Thursday. “I’m just looking for where is Portland in this?”

The meeting offered one of the first public looks at the initial building and site plans for the controversial $235 million project on a site between Northeast Holladay and Multnomah streets, directly north of the Oregon Convention Center.

The 19- to 21-story, 600-room hotel and neighboring above-grade parking garage with approximately 385 spaces is scheduled to open in 2018, said Mike Clifford, a construction executive with Minneapolis-based Mortenson, the project developer and general contractor.

Project designers Elness Swenson Graham Architects of Minneapolis, Ankrom Moisan Architects, landscape architecture firm Mayer/Reed and Portland architect Michael McCulloch are moving full steam ahead conceiving plans for the long-sought development, he said.

The hotel project has drawn criticism because it will receive public revenue bond financing through Metro.

“Today, we’re closer than we’ve been in 30 years to completing this project,” Clifford told the design commission.

The impression the hotel will make on visitors to Portland and the rest of Oregon has been one of the key design considerations, McCulloch said.

“We’re creating the front porch,” he said. “When you leave the airport on light rail you come to this spot, so that front porch better be inviting and it better be Portland … We also know it’s a brand of our region.”

Also important was figuring out a way to relate the hotel to the nearby convention center, particularly its iconic glass spires, said Michael Great, managing principal with Ankrom Moisan Architects.

“We know we want to be a quiet, simple backdrop to the spires,” he said.

With the aim of letting the hotel tower fade into the background, the design team focused mostly on the building’s lower portion, ESG design principal Trace Jacques said. The idea is to create an active podium that engages passersby by exposing activity inside the building through windows to the street, and showing the surrounding city to hotel visitors looking out, he said.

“We’re basically turning the program inside out … (to) push as much visible activity to the perimeter of the building as possible,” Jacques said. “It’s also how users in the building are connecting with the city around them.”

Despite commissioners’ advice offered last fall against placing a plaza on the superblock site at the corner of Northeast Holladay Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the design team said Thursday they decided to stick with a scaled-down version at the same location. Commissioners responded that they still took issue with a plaza at that intersection.

Commissioner Guenevere Millius pointed out that a series of planters and benches would feel like a series of obstacles for visitors arriving with suitcases at the Convention Center MAX station nearby.

“It’s your guests that are going to be using that stop,” she said. “It’s your job to make them feel welcome and not have to go past these barriers.”

Commission Chairman David Wark said the private plaza should feel more civic because it’s adjacent to the publicly owned convention center.

“Everybody should feel like they can enjoy it without feeling cut off,” he said.

Wark was among commissioners who expressed concerns about a large vehicle drop-off space on Northeast Hassalo Place, a private drive connecting Martin Luther King Boulevard and Multnomah streets. Millius said she worried about vehicle and pedestrian conflicts.

“That’s what bothers me,” she said. “There’s no way to walk and not feel like you’ve stepped into a (driveway).”

Commissioners also criticized plans to build a loggia at the intersection of Northeast Second Avenue and Holladay Street because it could feel dark and unwelcoming.

“There’s just something about that loggia that’s just counter to everything else,” Wark said.

The overall building massing plans are on the right track, commissioners said, but the design team’s inspiration for the stripped facade coming from a line of trees in the forest is cheesy. The designers should incorporate the Portland spirit into the architecture in a more creative way, Wark said. He suggested that the team return later for a third design advice hearing.

“It’s about recognizing something that goes beyond a stereotype,” he said. “I think what we’re asking for is not to be generic. There are numerous ways to interpret Portland.”

Mixed-use building reviewed

Also on Thursday, the design commission offered feedback on the design for Couch 9, a proposed 11-story mixed-use building, at 115 and 125 N.W. Ninth Ave., designed by Portland-based Vallaster Corl Architects.

Instead of voting whether to approve the project, commissioners asked the design team to take another crack at the building’s northwest side. The checkerboard pattern of red balconies sticking out from the facade wouldn’t relate to the southwest side’s inverted balconies, they noted.

Oregon Square proceeding

American Assets Trust‘s proposed Oregon Square mixed-use superblock development recently was the subject of a third design advice hearing. The GBD Architects design team plans to next seek the design commission’s approval for the project, city planner Kara Fioravanti said.

Plans call for a plaza more than 100,000 square feet surrounded by four L-shaped buildings. Combined, the new buildings will hold more than 900 apartments above approximately 55,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 745 below-grade parking spaces. Two buildings will be 11 stories, one will be 21 stories and one will be 29 stories.

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Bremik Construction is building a six-story mixed-use apartment project on Southeast 10th Avenue near East Burnside Street for developer Urban Asset Advisors. Work began in May on the 5-over-1, wood-framed structure. The building will include 62 residential units ranging in size from studios to two-bedrooms and three to four retail spaces on the ground floor.

The Vallaster Corl Architects-designed project features a green-space patio on the second floor and an outdoor barbecue/patio area on the top floor, as well as 17 parking spaces, bicycle storage, and a bike/pet wash area. The building is slated for completion in June 2015.

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When Mike Harn, the owner of Portland homebuilding company Anlon Construction, was first approached about taking over a 20-unit townhome development, he wasn’t interested.

Before opening shop in 2009, the custom homebuilder had worked for a Portland production builder that closed its doors during the recession. He had witnessed firsthand the risk of putting too many resources in one place. However, when the broker told him where the new development would be located, he changed his tune.

“He said, ‘How about if they’re in Sellwood?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ ” Harn recalled. “We wrote up an offer a few days later.”

In October, Harn closed on a deal to buy the 31,000-square-foot lot for $2.06 million and revive the approximately $6.5 million Claybourne Commons project on Southeast Claybourne Street and 16th Avenue. The project has evolved, and so has neighborhood sentiment.

Surrounded by old Portland homes, neighbors disliked Claybourne Commons when it was presented previously as a modern, 20-unit condominium complex. Developers Drew Prell and James Morton started planning years ago, but the project was sidelined during the recession. In 2011, they reformatted it as a townhome development; however, ground was never broken.

Online comments in the 91��Ƶ’s archives from 2011 are varied. Some offered support while others condemned the project.

“What an incredibly stupid place for 20 units!!” wrote one reader. “It’s already way overcrowded in that area and we don’t want it.”

Much has since changed. Near the corner of Southeast 17th Avenue and Tacoma Street (less than a mile south of the Claybourne Commons site), developer Wally Remmers is building a four-story, 46-unit apartment complex. Also, just east of that site, Urban Evolution Inc. is planning to build a 68-unit apartment complex on Southeast 23rd Avenue. Neighbors have adamantly opposed that project’s size, and have appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals to try and stop it.

Ellen Burr, land-use chairwoman of the Sellwood-Moreland Improvement League, said Remmers had previously considered buying the Claybourne Commons site for an apartment project with up to 100 units and no parking. Suddenly, Harn’s project seemed smaller by comparison.

“I think it will be an interesting project to have in the neighborhood – something refreshing,” Burr said.

Anlon has already completed demolition of two existing houses, and plans to begin underground work soon. Harn said he has a construction loan from Community Financial Co. Work has already drawn curious neighbors.

“As soon as we put our fences up and started doing some demo, I was down there five to six hours a day talking to the neighbors as they came by,” Harn said. “I think that probably it’s been a much different experience for us than it was for Drew and Jim at the beginning … The neighbors have been great. I was nervous for all intents and purposes, but they’ve been great. We just communicate.”

Harn, a former U.S. Army Ranger, knows what it’s like to be barked at. Now 39 years old, he started building at 21 and prefers a more collaborative approach in his business. Neighbors originally took issue with a planned lack of parking at Claybourne Commons, so the revised plan includes a one-car garage for each townhome.

The development will be composed of four buildings with a common space between them. The average unit size will be approximately 1,500 square feet. Vallaster Corl Architects designed Claybourne Commons originally, though Harn has brought on Benjamin Waechter, Architect to update the drawings.

Those drawings are still being finalized, but Harn is putting a lot of emphasis on the windows, which unlike standard systems will be seated inside the framing members to make them appear more dominant. He said too much gingerbread on the exterior can sometimes make a building appear crowded, so he’s taking a minimalistic approach and using the windows as a centerpiece.

“The goal is we get to decide where your eyes are going to be drawn,” he said.

For Harn, it’s an opportunity to step into what he considers one of the most desirable submarkets in the city. Eric Post, principal broker at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, would agree. He’s listing the units.

“The location is just second to none in terms of a new project down there,” Post said. “The demand for ownership in an urban setting is still very high. There are lots of multifamily units, but these types of units give someone the benefits of homeownership without the maintenance, and without the inconvenience of the suburbs.”

Indeed, the Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood has seen some of the hottest real estate activity in recent years, with the median home sales price reaching $360,000 in November – a 23.3 percent increase year over year, according to the Regional Multiple Listings Service. However, homes in Sellwood routinely are listed for between $400,000 and $500,000. For instance, Everett Custom Homes recently bought a house in the southern part of the neighborhood, tore it down and built two homes in its place; the company then planned to market them for as much as $700,000.

Harn said his townhomes will likely sell in the mid-$300,000 range. He doesn’t anticipate any trouble selling them.

“It’s an area where you can walk through and experience Portland at every level,” he said. “There are small shops, thriving businesses, and some of my – dare I say – favorite trendy restaurants. It’s just a heck of a place … And if you need to be downtown, you’re there in 10 minutes.”

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The developers of the 179-unit apartment complex, Savier Flats, which began construction this month in Northwest Portland, is preparing to double down on their downtown building activities.

is in the early planning stages for a new 140-unit, 143,833-square-foot apartment complex at 2040 S.W. Jefferson St., in the Goose Hollow neighborhood. The building will have six stories above ground and three stories of basement parking.

Sam Rodriguez, vice president of development for Mill Creek, said it is a prime location for such a project.

“It’s in Goose Hollow and we’re looking for properties in markets that haven’t had much development of new apartments,” Rodriguez said. “It’s obviously a very old neighborhood with a tradition of apartment living, it’s close to the core and we believe that right now that’s the most advantageous market that we can be in.”

Rodriguez said Mill Creek plans to market the building to the young professional crowd between the ages of 25 and 35 and is planning the project from a transit-oriented perspective. Located directly across from the MAX light rail blue line, the property will offer residents easy access to the suburbs and downtown, he said.

“If it’s an Intel employee, they can be to work in 20 minutes on the train,” he said. “If it’s downtown, it’s a highly walk-able site.”

While Mill Creek has not yet drafted a firm design for the building, Rodriguez said the majority of it (roughly 92 percent) will be one-bedroom units averaging 700 square feet in size, with the remainder being two-bedroom suites. They plan to market the units for approximately $2 per square foot.

Rodriguez said they also plan to get the building a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating, but they have not yet decided to what extent.

One detail that could potentially delay the planning process is that a portion of the land to be developed is owned by transit agency TriMet.

Rodriguez said the developers are currently in negotiations to purchase this property but that because it is public land, it is subject to the public notification and hearing process. Rodriguez said, however, that initial responses from residents in the Goose Hollow neighborhood had been positive and that developers hope to have final approval from TriMet by February 2012.

If all goes as planned, Mill Creek hopes to begin full design of the building by January 2012 and to send the project out to bid for subcontractor trades by the spring or summer. Rodriguez said they are aiming to break ground by November and that construction will last 17 to 18 months.

The next immediate phase in the planning process will be a pre-application conference, which the project architect, Portland-based , has scheduled for Jan. 4.

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