When developers Wylie Gibbins and Taylor Kaplan were searching for an underserved multifamily market, they looked to Gresham.

The east Portland suburb had several factors in its favor. Rents were rising to the point that new development could be supported, and job growth was surging – in part because of the arrival of an Amazon warehouse in Troutdale and Vista Logistics Park in Gresham.

Gibbins and Kaplan, who met while working at Williams & Dame Development, formed Gibbins Kaplan Development in 2017. The business partners found they had complementary skill sets, with Gibbins focusing on finance and investor relations, and Kaplan working with architects, contractors and city officials to launch multifamily projects.

Having found a suitable market, the developers next needed access to capital, so they turned to some bigger fish in the business.

Like many industries, real estate development faces a generational gap. Older, established developers enjoy many advantages – typically a long record of successful projects, deep relationships with investors, architects and contractors, and more resources to marshal bigger and more profitable projects.

Younger developers like Gibbins, 42, and Kaplan, 34, sometimes must become a bit scrappy to find opportunities. Enter the older, more established developers.

Gibbins Kaplan Development partnered with Urban Asset Advisors on two multifamily projects in Gresham: The Archibald and Douglas Grove.

“We basically rode shotgun with them on the project,” said Tim O’Brien, president of Urban Asset Advisors. “We helped them where we could, and otherwise stayed out of the way.”

O’Brien introduced Gibbins and Kaplan to one of UAA’s longtime lenders, helping the newer developers access debt.

“We helped raise the equity for the project from local, private investors. Then we went and signed on the bank loan with them,” O’Brien said.

Gibbins Kaplan Development this past summer completed Twelve Mile Crossing, an 82-unit complex in Gresham, in partnership with McKenzie River Company. The complex has 10 three-bedroom units in addition to one- and two-bedroom units. All are occupied.

“There’s a big demand for that (unit size) and a lack of that in Gresham,” Gibbins said.

Now, Gibbins Kaplan Development has forged a partnership with another Portland developer, Capstone Partners. They plan to break ground in June on Arts Plaza Apartments, a 97-unit project in the heart of downtown Gresham expected to be completed in summer 2023. Then construction of West Powell Apartments, a 48-unit complex, is slated to begin in late summer, with completion scheduled for fall 2023.

“Part of my interest is to help promote a good project, but also to help smaller developers,” said Chris Nelson, president of Capstone Partners.

For Gibbins and Kaplan, the partnerships have enabled them to get rolling on projects and establish their firm as a player in the workforce multifamily market.

“We’ve been very fortunate with both Tim and Chris that they’ve provided a lot of mentorship in addition to partnership,” Kaplan said.

Gibbins Kaplan Development does not plan to rely on other developers for long, however. The firm recently closed on another property at 405 N. Third St., that they envision holding their first solo development. The Gresham Arts Plaza property will have approximately 20 units.

The firm has also kept projects moving by using a small roster of industry firms. MWA Architects has designed every Gibbins Kaplan Development project to date, which helps the design process run smoothly, Kaplan said.

“We know we’re not going to have a big surprise,” she said. “Everybody’s done this a few times.”

Douglas Grove and The Archibald were built by LMC Construction. Team Construction, based in Vancouver, Washington, built Twelve Mile Crossing and is performing preconstruction for the projects with Capstone Partners.

Rents in Gresham do not yet support podium construction, Kaplan said, unlike in Beaverton and Hillsboro. To make the Gresham projects financially feasible, the buildings are designed with a minimal amount of steel on the first floor.

“Not only are steel costs going up, but the lead times are going up as well,” Kaplan said. “Designing projects that are responsive to materials’ (cost) increases is increasingly important for controlling your (total) costs.”

Douglas Grove and The Archibald were envisioned as short-term holds. They were put on the market on Jan. 27 by JLL.

All of Gibbins Kaplan Development’s subsequent projects are in an Opportunity Zone and are part of Opportunity Zone funds. As such, they are expected to be 10-year holds to reach the threshold that allows investors to forego paying tax on the capital gains.

Gresham has five contiguous Opportunity Zones. The tax break has helped get Gibbins Kaplan Development’s multifamily projects off the ground, Gibbins said.

“Out here, I think it’s spurring development as the program is intended to do and producing workforce housing,” he said.

Opportunity Zones have attracted criticism for encouraging investment in areas that already had attracted developers’ interest, including Portland’s West End, where a 35-story Ritz-Carlton tower is under construction, and fast-gentrifying areas of West Oakland, California, and San Francisco.

Other developers, including Palindrome Communities and Wood Partners, have targeted Gresham for multifamily development.

“There continues to be a lot of interest in Gresham as a whole, but certainly multifamily,” said Eric Schmidt, assistant city manager for the city of Gresham.

Gibbins and Kaplan have learned how to smoothly navigate the city’s approval processes, Schmidt said.

“They’ve been a great partner with the city,” he said.

The multifamily projects align with the city’s need for more housing, Schmidt said.

“They do great work,” he said. “Each project is just getting continually more dialed in.”

Gibbins and Kaplan said Gresham had been supportive.

“She’s able to key decision makers in Gresham on the phone on the weekend,” Gibbins said of Kaplan, “which doesn’t happen in every jurisdiction.”

The post Teamwork making the dream work in Gresham appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Gresham Design Commission has given a green light to the development team proposing to build a 37-unit multifamily project at the northeast corner of Southeast 202nd Avenue and Stark Street.

Plans for the Archibald Grove Apartments call for two buildings – one with 12 one-bedroom units and the other with 25 two-bedroom units; all would rent at market rates. The development will provide as many as 61 parking spaces for motor vehicles.

Taylor Kaplan, a principal with Gibbins Kaplan Development, is listed as the applicant for the project, which is planned for a vacant 1.53-acre parcel of land.

The property owner is UAA/GKD Archibald Grove Investors LLC, a corporation aligned with Gibbins Kaplan Development, a firm formed earlier this year to focus on workforce housing projects in the Portland-metro area. The firm was jointly founded by Kaplan and Wylie Gibbins; both formerly worked for Williams & Dame Development.

MWA Architects is designing the project, which will have entrances on both 202nd Avenue and Stark Street. While most utilities are already in place and serve the surrounding neighborhood, the site lacks stormwater drainage and will require installation of a series of rain gardens to compensate.

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It’s not often that a community has so many hopes wrapped up in a single project. But in the impoverished community of Rockwood, in east Multnomah County, ground is poised to be broken soon on a mixed-use development known as to reinvigorate an area known more for poverty and crime than for its diverse population and culture.

“Rockwood Rising is a project we’ve been working on for almost nine years,” Gresham Redevelopment Commission Executive Director Josh Fuhrer said. “It’s intended to create an economic engine in the heart of the neighborhood of Rockwood, and it’s really a project that came about because of the deep community engagement we did trying to understand what the challenges were on a daily basis, what their aspirations were for themselves and their families.”

As envisioned, the project will consist of three new multiuse buildings on a parcel of property bordered on the north by Burnside Street and on the south by Stark Street. The parcel reaches from Southeast 188th Avenue on the east to 185th on the west, forming a rough trapezoid.

Plans call for inclusion of an urgent and primary health care clinic in an existing building that formerly held a Gresham police station. A new public plaza between the four buildings will tie the development together. There will be space for job training and apprenticeship programs, as well as public media space.

Finally, there will be 108 new housing units – either studios, or one- or two-bedroom apartments. At least 20 percent of those units will be affordable and be made available to families making no more than 80 percent of the state’s median household income.

“I wouldn’t say we’re breaking any construction boundaries with this,” said Matt Brown, a principal with YBA Architects, the firm responsible for design. “But in fact the game has been: How do we build this as economically as possible but still create remarkable buildings that will still be groundbreaking in the feeling of care in the design and sensitivity toward people while working within considerable economic constraints and trying to build things very efficiently?”

The project has an overall price tag of approximately $70 million, and has at times raised eyebrows among some citizens worried about the ongoing displacement of lower-income residents throughout the Portland-metro area.

The city of Gresham will provide some $9.5 million in urban renewal tax increment financing funding, along with $2 million in state grant funding. The project also is benefiting from $8 million in New Markets tax credit equity.

The balance, close to $50 million, will come from debt and equity financing via RKM Development, the private developer in charge of construction through its subsidiary Central Bethany Development.

RKM Development previously worked on on the western outskirts of Portland in the 1990s. Now the company is taking that expertise and applying it to an underserved community on the other side of the metro area.

“The owner of our development company (Roy Kim) has an interest in doing projects in depressed areas, so that’s kind of what interested him,” said Jeff Oberst, a Central Bethany Development construction manager working on Rockwood Rising. “We haven’t done any new development out there, but we own some property out there for future development.”

The three new buildings will consist of a larger mixed-use structure with a retail component, a four-story office building and a food-oriented structure, Oberst said.

“We’re calling it the market hall,” he said. “There will be an open-air market with micro restaurants, some small ethnic grocers, maybe a meat market. This area is considered a food desert, and there’s not a lot of places for people to shop out there.”

The public plaza will essentially link the three new buildings together.

“It’s kind of a gathering area for the community for events,” Oberst said. “It’s a public space that will be utilized daily.”

From the outset, Brown said, Kim challenged architects to design each building in a distinct fashion.

“He wanted all the buildings to look (like) they were each designed by different architects,” Brown said. “That was a really interesting and cool challenge, and our result was to develop clear concepts for each building and then hold onto that concept all the way through.”

That wasn’t enough, however. Kim also wanted the project to feel unique to the entire metro area.

“There was often a refrain that they don’t want this to be cool in the way the Pearl District is cool,” Brown said. “We want it to be cool for Rockwood, which was awesome for us. I think the output will be unique, and hopefully it will inspire people and be well received.”

The current iteration of Rockwood Rising is a far cry from its original form.

The city of Gresham purchased the property with $8.1 million in urban renewal funding in 2006 following the closure a year earlier of a Fred Meyer store. A year later the city contracted with Williams & Dame Development, but after 15 months all that resulted was a proposal to put a YMCA on the property. In 2009 the city ended that relationship.

Now, 12 years since the city purchased the land, little has transpired. In the meantime, grocery stores have closed. Health care also is not easily accessible; the nearest hospital, the Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center, is nearly four miles east of the Rockwood Rising site.

“It’s not just Fred Meyer,” Fuhrer said. “We’ve had six of the seven major chain grocery stores in and around Rockwood close in the last 20 years at a time when the population is increasing … So, we’ve really tried to create a place in the heart of Rockwood town center where people can come and do their weekly grocery shopping and they can come get grocery staples, paper towels, dish soap and that kind of stuff.”

The entire project, Fuhrer added, is about creating opportunities – housing, employment and health care, in particular – and making them available to Rockwood residents.

“We’re going to create a cluster of uses in this project that is going to be unique to the Portland-metro area,” he said. “Our whole project is about creating opportunities for people to start businesses, providing the wraparound services to give entrepreneurs the resources they need to be successful to start a new business.

“We’ve really tried to be mindful around a strategy that doesn’t displace people, but still allows them to experience the revitalization that the area so desperately needs.”

Rockwood Rising time line:

2005 – Rockwood Fred Meyer closes its doors

2006 – Ex-Fred Meyer property purchased by the city of Gresham for $8.1 million

2007 – City contracts with Williams & Dame Development to create a plan for the property

2009 – City ends relationship with Williams & Dame Development

2014 – Gresham Redevelopment Commission begins public outreach on development ideas

2015 – Community outreach continues with Rock the Block and other events and meetings

2015 – City selects RKM Development to oversee Rockwood Rising development

2016 – Public outreach efforts continue as the plan takes shape

2017 – Ground-breaking event delayed because of financial issues related to tax credits

2018 – Ground expected to be broken in spring or summer

The post Rockwood’s revitalization on the horizon appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

One of Portland’s most prominent developers painted a dark picture Thursday of an entire generation of retiring baby boomers with no savings who will rely on shelters or a nomadic lifestyle in RVs as high costs shut them out of the housing market.

Homer Williams, a partner in Williams & Dame Development, has become in recent years a vocal critic of Portland’s homelessness crisis. City officials, business leaders and ordinary Portland residents must do much more to aid the homeless, Williams said, speaking at a Bisnow panel discussion with other developers and real-estate professionals.

“We’re going to see shelters in every neighborhood,” Williams said. “We’re not going to have a choice.”

Williams founded Oregon Harbor of Hope, a nonprofit organization that works to address homelessness. It now offers services such as mobile laundry to homeless camps.

“We have to recognize this is our problem,” Williams said. “This is everybody’s problem. We have to be willing as neighborhoods or businesses. What I tell people is do something or shut up, because it’s going to take doing something, not talking about it.”

City officials and developers may have to reconsider housing types such as single-room units they have traditionally frowned upon, Williams said.

“We’re going to have to redefine what acceptable housing is,” he said. “Sheltered is a better word.”

Williams’ blunt comments struck an odd tone amid a wider discussion of topics such as prevailing capitalization rates and Portland’s inclusionary housing policies. The panel was hosted by Bisnow at The Nines, a downtown luxury hotel.

Despite some overbuilding in the luxury rental market, the city continues to attract capital, panelists said.

“Portland is still on everybody’s horizon,” said Joe Nydahl, a CBRE broker who focuses on multifamily investments. “National firms that don’t have anything here, they’re still looking to get in.”

Nydahl said he recently sold land for future multifamily development. Portland’s inclusionary housing rules, which require multifamily developers to include rent-restricted affordable units or pay a fee, are not scaring off investors, he said.

“We’re still seeing deals start,” he said.

Mark Desbrow, principal of Green Light Development, said his firm has shifted away from multifamily development since Portland’s inclusionary housing rules took effect on Feb. 1, 2017. “I see the multifamily space as extremely competitive and hard to make a buck,” he said. “So we’re trying to innovate.”

Green Light’s latest project is adaptive reuse of a former three-story apartment building near the Burnside bridgehead. The firm is planning an Icelandic hostel and gastropub.

Since inclusionary housing took effect, apartment projects have popped up on Portland’s periphery, but not in close-in areas.

“There’s not going to be much developed in the core without incentives,” Desbrow said.

Desbrow said he’s seeing more projects with 30-80 units and no parking in Portland neighborhoods. Another multifamily developer has pursued that business model, he added.

“Dennis Sackhoff has been really successful keeping his price point down,” Desbrow said. “I think that’s where we’re headed.”

Jeff Ballaine, vice president of Hunt Mortgage Group in Seattle, said he expects to see more services such as day care offered in apartment complexes.

“Maybe the people who are providing the day care service are getting subsidized rent so they can live near where they work,” he said.

The post Developer: Portland must do more to help homeless appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

After playing major roles in developing Portland’s South Waterfront District and Pearl District, Williams & Dame Development is in position to develop a key riverfront parcel in Eugene.

The Portland firm has entered into exclusive negotiations with the city of Eugene to develop a 16-acre property along the Willamette River. The parcel has served for decades as the operations center for Eugene Water and Electric Board, but the utility moved to sell the property and consolidate operations at another facility in west Eugene.

Eugene officials consider the property the city’s only shot at creating a riverfront district that extends from downtown.

“There‘s a tremendous opportunity there,” said Denny Braud, executive director of Eugene’s Planning and Development Department. “This is really the only place downtown that touches the river.”

Williams & Dame has closely tracked the property for years. In 2014, the University of Oregon Foundation was selected as master developer for the property, ahead of Williams & Dame and Trammell Crow Co.

“They were all viable candidates for the project,” Braud said.

The UO Foundation eventually backed out.

“They ended up deciding that it wasn’t the perfect project for them,” Braud said. “It was probably a little risky. They hadn’t done this type of development before.”

Braud reached out again to Williams & Dame and Trammell Crow, and it was Williams & Dame that kept coming back.

“Williams & Dame has a very specific and proven skill set working in public-private partnerships,” said John Mangan, a spokesman for the company. “Those are difficult, complex projects involving a host of issues, and it’s something Williams & Dame excels at.”

Earlier this year, Eugene’s urban renewal agency purchased the property from EWEB for $5.75 million. The purchase was meant to provide a clear path to resell the property to a developer, Braud said. At one point, the urban renewal agency was acting as EWEB’s agent to sell the property, but the arrangement proved cumbersome.

“That triangular relationship gets a little bit complicated,” Braud said.

Williams & Dame can now negotiate directly with the urban renewal agency on a disposition and sale agreement.

A combination of urban renewal funds, possible tax exemptions for housing and a purchase price adjustment could be used to make the project worthwhile for Williams & Dame, Braud said.

“All of those things are tools we could use to help make that project happen,” he said. “If we need to adjust the purchase price to make that happen, we’ve done it in the past. We’ve also sold property at market value.”

EWEB retains ownership of a steam plant and substation next to the developable property. Approximately 3 acres along the river is set aside for a future public park.

A master plan for the property was adopted by EWEB commissioners in 2010 and the Eugene City Council in 2013. That document calls for a mixed-use approach with office, residential and commercial space. The plan envisions 250 to 400 residential units, plazas, boardwalks and open space. Building heights could range up to 120 feet, or lower depending on different density scenarios.

The master plan remains a “guiding force” for Williams & Dame, Mangan said.

Development is expected to occur in phases. City officials hope to make some progress on the site by 2021, when Eugene will host the outdoor track and field world championships.

“One of our goals by 2021 is that we have at least some redevelopment of that site under way, including completion of the park on the river and some development coming out of the ground,” Braud said.

The site is complicated by Union Pacific railroad tracks and the six-lane Ferry Street Bridge Viaduct – one of Eugene’s most heavily trafficked arterial roads. Eugene’s Millrace, an artificially constructed channel, has its outfall on the property. Planners have debated whether to “daylight” the Millrace, or bring it to the surface.

Eugene used an environmental grant to study the site. More than 120 holes were drilled to look for contamination.

“We have not discovered to this point any major problems that should be of great concern,” Braud said.

Currently, Williams & Dame is constructing 9North, a Pearl District office building. Last year, the firm finished Hyatt House, a hotel in downtown Portland.

The post Portland developer eyeing Eugene riverfront appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

In a fifth-floor conference room at the Portland Housing Bureau‘s downtown headquarters on Tuesday, Dike Dame gazed at a packet of papers.

Near the end of a three-hour meeting with consultants hired to analyze the economic effects of possible inclusionary zoning regulations, the principal at Williams & Dame Development wanted to make a point.

“We’re not going to know if this works until it’s out there and we’re trying to implement it,” he said to the consultants sitting across from him. “If we mandate a whole bunch of things that aren’t going to work in the real world, nothing’s going to happen.”

That’s the rub for the Inclusionary Housing Panel of Experts, a committee of developers, architects and affordable housing advocates convened by Commissioner Dan Saltzman. The committee’s charge is to evaluate possible inclusionary zoning regulations, and to recommend a set that provides affordable housing without discouraging development.

Developers have warned city officials that their business runs on tight margins, and more expensive regulations could slow multifamily development – the opposite of what’s needed to ease Portland’s housing emergency.

During a monthly meeting on Tuesday, the group waded into the details of data modeling meant to determine whether inclusionary zoning regulations will be too costly. In some cases, developers on the committee pushed consultants from David Paul Rosen & Associates to accept higher estimates for predevelopment costs.

Greg Goodman, co-president of Downtown Development Group, said the Premier Press building in the Pearl District sold for $660 per square foot – well above the consultants’ upper-end estimate of acquisition costs. And Mill Creek Residential Trust paid more than $600 per square foot for a Pearl District block where it proposes to build Modera Davis, a mixed-use building with 150 residential units.

Goodman said the consultants’ estimates of less than $300 per square foot “grossly understates the downtown core values.”

Downtown Development Group has spent $2 million on predevelopment for a downtown proposal, Goodman said. And that’s just to get to the point where the developer can submit a completed planning application to the Bureau of Development Services.

“It’s real money before you know if it’s a go or no go,” he said.

Goodman urged the consultants to take into account transportation demand management, a Portland Bureau of Transportation program that is under development. The program could levy hefty fees on developers in the Central City, he said.

Dame told the consultants that the figures need to take into account floor-to-area ratio.

“Without understanding the FAR, these numbers are irrelevant,” he said.

Dame also urged the consultants to use a real-life case study in their modeling to test how regulations would affect a development.

The looming regulations are leading developers to move quickly on predevelopment. Any project for which a permit application has been made will be grandfathered in, meaning developers who apply before inclusionary housing regulations take effect won’t have to accept less profitable rent-restricted units and uncertain rules.

The Bureau of Development Services is working to hire 23 additional employees to process the expected wave of permit applications, on top of an already heavy workload.

Staffers at the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability are working on how to structure the inclusionary zoning code, the consultants said.

The Oregon Legislature in March passed a law opening the door for inclusionary zoning at the urging of Portland leaders seeking a solution to the city’s lack of affordable housing.

The city of Portland soon hired David Paul Rosen & Associates, a consulting firm based in Oakland, California, and local group ECONorthwest to analyze the potential economic effects of inclusionary zoning regulations.

“We’re trying to steer a course that doesn’t sink development and provides a reasonable community benefit,” said David Rosen, principal of the consulting firm.

The new law allows cities to require multifamily projects of at least 20 units to include 20 percent affordable units, available to renters or buyers at 80 percent of the area median income. Developers must be offered an option to pay a fee in lieu of building affordable units. And the law requires municipalities to offer a range of incentives, something Portland’s inclusionary zoning committee is expected to delve into at future meetings.

The group will hold a meeting in July and another in August. The consultants said recommendations will be forwarded to Saltzman’s office in early September, and the City Council could consider them in late November.

Some other committee members expressed frustration that they had little to contribute to the discussion on financial modeling. Lisa Bates, a Portland State University urban studies and planning professor, repeatedly asked the consultants when she could weigh in on affordable housing policy.

The developers continued to push the consultants to consider hidden costs.

“This stuff either pencils or it doesn’t,” Dame said.

The post All about affordability appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Portland developer Homer Williams has been making a lot of calls lately, lobbying support for what would be a massive public-private effort to shelter the city’s growing homeless population. The $100 million idea unveiled this week would add a full-service shelter campus to a city-owned 14-acre parcel: the former site of the Port of Portland’s Terminal 1 along the west side of the Willamette River.

“To a person, they’ve said yes,” Williams said.

So far, the project draws heavily from San Antonio’s Haven for Hope, right down to the $100 million price tag and the 501(c)3 organization that would operate the shelter.

That arrangement would be crucial, said Williams, who’s working alongside business partner Dike Dame.

“The important thing here is that this is run by the private side,” Williams said. “The state and city are partners; the businesses and foundations are partners. And in the middle is the community. We’re looking at this like we’d look at a development. You’ve just got to break it down into pieces and attack them.”

Homelessness and housing affordability are two issues gripping government and public consciousness in Portland. Mayor Charlie Hales has declared a “housing state of emergency” to seek shelter for the more than 1,000 people who sleep outside in Portland each night.

Williams said he favors an approach attacking the root causes of homelessness through a program run by a comprehensive group of stakeholders.

“A bed and meals doesn’t do it, and for most of these people, even an apartment doesn’t do it,” he said. “I mean, they need a lot of care and a lot of healing to get back into mainstream society.”

The team so far includes Ankrom Moisan Architects, which has been performing schematic designs pro bono.

Williams told the 91��Ƶ he intends to have a plan to put on the desk of Portland’s next mayor, Ted Wheeler, by the first quarter of 2017. The proposal would cost $360,000, covered mostly by business interests, and contain cost estimates and estimated operating budgets. Williams said he’s had discussions with Wheeler, as well as the chairwoman of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, Deborah Kafoury.

Williams first spoke about his plans with The Oregonian’s editorial board. The plan would feature beds for 700 people, and transitional housing for an additional 700.

When asked if this project was intended to be a career-capper, Williams, 71, said, “We just kind of stumbled into this, to be honest with you.”

The post Williams and Dame planning expansive, $100M shelter appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

For the first time, the Portland Development Commission is forming its own limited liability company and will act as developer and owner of a project.

The PDC’s board voted 5-0 on Wednesday to approve the plan for the agency to take over a mixed-use project in Lents after Williams & Dame backed out.

The PDC had planned on taking ownership of the project at some point, spokesman Shawn Uhlman said.

“It was always contemplated there was the potential for PDC to step back in and take ownership of this property and this project, and this was always contemplated by both parties,” he said. “I don’t know if there was ever a clear delineation of when that would happen.”

The project calls for a 65,504-square-foot building. It would include 54 apartment units, including 16 affordable units pegged at 60 percent of median income, nearly 9,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 32 parking spaces.

Uhlman acknowledged that the PDC’s role in the Lents project is unprecedented.

“This is the first time we’ve gone down this path of forming our own LLC and acting as developer,” he said.

The PDC’s staff has the expertise to carry the project to completion, Uhlman added.

The PDC’s own documents suggest that the agency did not plan to complete the development on its own.

“As the project financial returns, public benefits and time commitments were refined and better understood, (Williams/Dame & Associates) decided not to proceed with the development beyond the design and permitting phase,” a board report prepared for Wednesday’s meeting says. “There was no intent, nor any reasonable ability to foresee that responsibility for project completion would be transferred to PDC. As such, no contracts between WDA and their consultants or contractors were entered into or had terms arranged that premeditated a transfer of project responsibility.”

The board report merely lays out the reasons for going forward with a no-bid process to complete the project, Uhlman said.

Homer Williams, chairman of Williams & Dame, did not reply to a message seeking comment.

Williams & Dame principal Dike Dame said in a news release issued by the PDC that the developer has always believed in the future of Lents, and is proud to have been a partner in the project. The statement did not address Williams & Dame’s decision to hand off the project.

Williams & Dame’s move to forgo developing the Lents project placed the PDC in an awkward spot. Instead of reopening bids to develop the project, PDC staff approved a no-bid process to allow the PDC to act as developer.

The process is designed for PDC to keep together the firms already engaged on the project: Bremik Construction and Hacker.

“To take the designs out for open bids at this point could potentially increase costs,” PDC senior project coordinator Will Thier told the commission on Wednesday. “There’s a very strong argument to be made that moving forward with Bremik Construction is the most cost-effective way to do this.”

Keeping Bremik on board makes sense, PDC Commissioner Aneshka Dickson said.

“General contractors spend a lot of time up front,” she said. “It does really seem appropriate to keep them on throughout the contract. That role takes time and money and effort.”

The Lents community supports the PDC’s move to step up as developer, Dickson added.

No commissioner at Wednesday’s meeting raised serious questions about the move, although Chairman Tom Kelly asked if there was any precedent for the PDC developing a building from the ground up. PDC staff confirmed there was not.

The PDC has long sought to redevelop the Lents Town Center Urban Renewal Area. The 0.63-acre vacant parcel targeted for the building is at 9101 S.E. Foster Road, at the northwest corner of Southeast 92nd Avenue and Foster Road.

The PDC is providing financing up to $15.3 million to complete the project.

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Leadership changes

Also at Wednesday’s meeting, PDC officials bade goodbye to PDC Executive Director Patrick Quinton and Dickson.

Quinton announced in February he would step down after five years in the role. Chief Financial Officer Faye Brown is serving as interim executive director while a national search proceeds.

Dickson served two, three-year terms. She was first appointed in 2010. Mayor Charlie Hales recently named Dr. Alisha Moreland-Capuia, executive director of the Avel Gordly Center for Healing at Oregon Health & Science University, to take Dickson’s place on the commission. Moreland-Capuia will serve a three-year term.

The post Without developer, PDC set to take over in Lents appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Three developers backing projects in Lents recently asked for, and received, $6.3 million in Portland Development Commission loans in the face of higher construction costs and a tight lending environment.

The PDC’s board on Feb. 10 approved the additional loans to encourage Palindrome Communities LLC, Williams & Dame Development and Asian Health & Services Center to move forward with a cluster of projects at Southeast 92nd Avenue and Foster Road.

The unanimous vote came as Palindrome approached the April 3 expiration of its option to purchase the New Copper Penny site at 5932 S.E. 92nd Ave. All three developers pleaded for more money to address increased construction costs and a lack of private financing. The extra money also will allow Palindrome to purchase and develop a highly visible corner parcel that is home to a Chevron gas station.

At the same time, PDC commissioners made clear that the additional loans would be the projects’ final line of credit.

“This is the most we’d be willing to do at this point,” Commissioner Aneshka Dickson said.

Added Commissioner William Myers: “If we come to an agreement on this, this’ll be the last time.”

With the additional $6.3 million, the PDC’s commitment to the developments has grown to $19.2 million.

The developers are aiming to transform a keystone Lents intersection that is anchored by the New Copper Penny, a long-established bar, and the gas station.

Palindrome Communities plans to demolish the New Copper Penny and add a mixed-use building on the site, and another on land occupied by the Chevron and a parcel owned by the PDC. The bar is a neighborhood icon, but it has drawn repeated shooting incidents and police calls in recent years.

The new buildings would boast 126 rent-restricted affordable units and 19 market-rate units, along with 29,000 square feet of first-floor commercial space.

Williams & Dame, doing business as 91st and Foster Development LLC, plans to construct a four-story mixed-use building with 16 affordable units and 38 market-rate units, 9,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and a public courtyard.

The Asian Health and Services Center plans to add a building with 30,000 square feet of commercial space for AHSC offices, clinic and community space, and 4,600 square feet of leasable commercial space.

Local residents have long pined for renewal in the neighborhood after years of false starts. There are at least some signs the urban renewal area is coming to life.

In September, Palindrome Communities’ Chad Rennaker, who previously created PINTS Brewing Co. in Old Town, opened a German-inspired brewpub, Zoiglhaus Brewing, at 5716 S.E. 92nd Ave. The PDC contributed more than $1 million to the brewpub project.

Rennaker said the brewpub and mixed-use development are part of the same vision for Lents.

“It’s a community that’s on the rise,” he said. “It just needed a few things to kind of spark it. We wouldn’t do a brewery in a location like that unless there were going to be other opportunities for mixed-use development.”

Zoiglhaus has been hailed as a much-needed space for community events and socialization in Lents.

“It’s a good asset to the community and it’s starting to build the identity of Lents as a healthy business district within Portland,” said Nick Christensen, a former president of the Lents Neighborhood Association.

Christensen said residents want more businesses and more rental housing, both affordable and market rate. The projects backed by PDC address those needs, he said.

“It’s really going to help preserve the affordability of the neighborhood while also providing jobs and improving the economy,” he said.

Christensen said he supports the PDC providing additional money to get the projects up and running.

“In the grand scheme of things, PDC spent more than $100 million in Lents over many years without many results – whereas these projects are going to have significant results,” he said.

Lents is getting its own sports team too. The Portland Pickles will begin play June 3, competing in a wood-bat baseball league. The Pickles’ opening season follows renovations – funded in part by the PDC – to Walker Stadium at Lents Park.

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The Portland Development Commission is moving forward at RiverPlace Parcel 3, and finishing nearly two decades of work to develop the North Macadam urban renewal area.

“We’re sort of nearing the end of our participation in that area,” said Eric Jacobson, senior project manager for the PDC. “This is a key part to making it a complete neighborhood by adding the affordable housing.”

The plan is to construct on RiverPlace Parcel 3, a 2.01-acre site at 2095 S.W. River Parkway, two buildings with a single level (173 spaces) of parking below grade. One building will be six stories with retail and grocery space at the ground level and five levels of apartments (162 units). The second building will be 12 stories with retail, residential amenities, 65 spaces of parking for grocery shoppers and 10 stories of affordable apartments (204 units).

The property has sat vacant for a number of years. The PDC and the Portland Housing Bureau earlier this year selected BRIDGE Housing Corp./Williams & Dame as the development team. The architect will be Ankrom Moisan Architects.

The project’s estimated total cost is $93 million, with at least $19 million coming from urban renewal funds. Stakeholders hope that construction begins by the end of 2016 and finishes within 20 months.

The PDC, the Portland Housing Bureau and the development team have entered into a due diligence and negotiation phase with the goal of reaching a purchase and sale agreement for the property. The intent is to bring the agreement before the PDC’s board by the end of the year.

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