With so-called “Old Portland” disappearing, a growing number of developers are looking to keep alive connections to properties’ pasts.

One good example of this type of adaptive re-use is now being carried out in Northwest Portland, where crews are stripping out the interiors of three large warehouses that until early last year housed Cenveo’s Graphic Arts Center, which was built in the mid 1960s.

General contractor R&H Construction is  updating the campus – now named The Hopper – to serve as a hybrid commercial/industrial facility for project partners Winkler Development Corp. and Watamull Properties Corp. LRS Architects carried out the design work.

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With so-called “Old Portland” disappearing amid a construction boom, some developers are now striving to make connections to properties’ pasts.

This is particularly true for adaptive reuse projects. One prominent example can now be found in Northwest Portland, where crews are stripping out the interiors of three large warehouses that until early last year housed Cenveo‘s Graphic Arts Center.

Now, general contractor R&H Construction is busy updating the campus – now named The Hopper – to serve as a hybrid commercial/industrial facility for project partners Winkler Development Corp. and Watumull Properties Corp. LRS Architects carried out the design work on the campus, which dates back to the mid-1960s.

“We knew,” Winkler Development Corp. principal Jordan Winkler said, “that we were going to take what was obsolete functionally, obsolete physically … and turn it into a modern industrial campus, and that’s what we’re setting out to do. It’s touching almost every surface here.”

The three buildings sit on 5.3 acres of property at 2000 N.W. Wilson St. Together they total more than 167,000 square feet, primarily open space. Tens of thousands of square feet of office space also will be created to potentially diversify the tenant base.

The first tenant will actually be R&H Construction itself. The contractor will set up its shop in 34,000 square feet of Building B, which sits in the middle of the block along Northwest Wilson Street between 20th and 21st avenues. That space will be used to store equipment and perform maintenance on vehicles and other gear. R&H also will occupy some 18,000 square feet of Building C to accommodate management, project engineers and other support staff.

“I would call it industrial chic in its existing state,” R&H project manager Kraig O’Connor said. “We are very much going to let the tilt walls talk a lot, but we’re going to paint them up. And for our office space, we’re certainly going with a stucco look and a big, pretty dramatic storefront. We’re really letting just the warehouse elements lead.”

A towering cyclonic paper separator that once was used to recycle waste paper from the Graphic Arts Center’s printing operations dominates the campus from its perch atop Building A. It’s known colloquially as a hopper, Winkler said.

“We just thought it was cool, so we kept it and named the building after it,” he said. “I wanted to name the building ‘The Cyclone,’ but it was deemed too aggressive.”

This particular building would probably best suit a retailer or other commercial tenant, Winkler added, mainly because it sits on the corner of the property most visible to passing foot and vehicle traffic.

For now, construction is being carried out in phases. Building B is already complete and in operation. Building A is next. It has been cleared, repainted and given a complete seismic enhancement featuring steel backing and other fixtures to better secure the roof and foundation to the concrete tilt-panel walls. All of the campus buildings will undergo similar upgrades.

“Primarily we’re looking at dealing with out-of-plane loading,” O’Connor explained. “So we’ve done a lot with steel, strong backing, we’re really trying to focus on diaphragm strengthening, so there’s been nailing and strapping of the roof and tying the diaphragm to exterior walls to get the load down to the ground.”

Winkler also sees plenty of room for growth in the neighborhood. For starters, two large planned transportation projects will bring significant changes. One calls for realignment of the Interstate 405 off-ramp at Northwest Vaughn Street. This would shunt drivers north to Wilson Street and past The Hopper to allow access to the huge Con-way Blocks development slightly south.

A second project, Winkler said, could potentially bring the Portland Streetcar much farther north than at present. That also would provide greater connectivity with the rest of the area.

“It’s not at all finalized,” he said, “but in every alignment I’ve seen it stops either at or very close to this property.”

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The location of a proposed homeless shelter at the west end of the Broadway Bridge has for years been the subject of development plans that did not come to fruition.

Oregon Harbor of Hope proposes to erect in Portland a temporary homeless shelter on the city-owned property at 1053-1201 N.W. Naito Parkway. The so-called “navigation center” would offer shelter for up to 90 days and connect the homeless to nearby social services.

“We do not intend this facility to house people on a long-term basis,” said Don Mazziotti, a board director for Oregon Harbor of Hope, the nonprofit organization led by developer Homer Williams.

The purpose of the center is “not to permanently shelter people but rather navigate to the services that will meet their needs best,” Mazziotti said.

The property has had a history of ambitious development plans that fizzled. The 2-acre parcel is bifurcated by the bridge, and complicated by a bridge easement. Vehicle noise, sight lines and proximity to the waterfront are among the many development obstacles.

The agency purchased the property in 1987 as part of the larger Union Station acquisition. Developers have unsuccessfully sought to build on the property. Most recently, in 2016, the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland) entered into negotiations with The Wolff Company, based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Wolff submitted a $9 million offer to build two apartment buildings totaling 340 units.

Wolff’s proposal did not move forward. The sale agreement went through several amendments before Wolff terminated it in June 2017, Prosper Portland spokeswoman Anne Mangan stated in an email message. The company’s development director did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Before Wolff, Winkler Development Corp. proposed to build on the parcel an office and garage project known as One Waterfront Place. The PDC terminated the agreement in 2011, more than a decade after Winkler became involved, when construction still had not begun.

The PDC listed the property with CBRE in June 2015, attracting offers from Wolff and Winkler.

Oregon Harbor of Hope’s push for the downtown navigation center comes after the announcement of a $1.5 million donation from Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle. The timeline for the shelter’s operation depends on city permitting, Mazziotti said. Oregon Harbor of Hope has scheduled pre-application meetings with the Bureau of Development Services and other relevant city bureaus.

“It’s not clear from the code whether this is an outright allowed use,” Mazziotti said.

The city’s emergency housing ordinance could provide some leeway, he said.

Mazziotti said he has also met with representatives of the Pearl District and Old Town-Chinatown neighborhood associations.

The proposed structure would be a “pavilion” – a 9,000-square-foot heavy-mill acrylic membrane cover stretched on an aluminum frame. Similar structures are used for homeless shelters in San Diego and San Francisco. They are also used for a church in Tigard, at Portland International Airport and Intel, Mazziotti said.

The pavilion is fully insulated and can be erected in about six weeks, Mazziotti said.

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An Arizona-based developer plans to build 340 apartment units in two buildings at the west end of the Broadway Bridge on land purchased from the Portland Development Commission.

The commission approved the $9 million sale to The Wolff Company, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, at a public meeting earlier this month. The developer has committed to designating 20 percent of the units – approximately 68 – as affordable for people earning 60 percent of the median family income for a period of 10 years. The developer’s representatives said 55 of those units will be maintained as affordable units for 20 years.

The site has long been targeted for development, but the PDC is connecting with a new developer after years of working with Portland’s Winkler Development Corp. A development agreement between the parties was terminated in 2011 after eight years of no construction.

The Wolff Company plans to begin construction by late 2017, with completion to follow in August 2019. The total development cost is anticipated at $75 million to $80 million, said Chris Rossman, Pacific Northwest director of development for The Wolff Company.

Project plans also call for 164 below-grade parking spaces.

The site, at 1053-1201 Northwest Naito Parkway, comes with several challenges. The Broadway Bridge cuts across the property from above, essentially dividing the 2-acre lot in two. One building, containing approximately 230 units, will be built north of the bridge, while another structure containing 110 units will be constructed south of the bridge.

“You definitely are limited in terms of how you can program the site due to the relationship with the bridgehead,” said Rossman, who is based in Seattle. “We’re looking at the areas north and south of the bridge; they’re unencumbered.”

The Wolff Company has not decided what it will do with the center of the property. The developer is looking at ways to link the buildings and provide for outdoor uses, Rossman said.

The company has long sought a large property to develop in Portland, Rossman said. Previous potential development opportunities fell through.

“It hasn’t been a lack of interest in Portland – quite the opposite,” he said.

The company recently began construction on a 279-unit apartment project in Hillsboro’s AmberGlen area. The as-yet-unnamed development will have only market-rate units.

“In urban Portland, finding these larger parcels is difficult,” Rossman said.

The Wolff Company has a national profile, but is particularly active in the Northwest, with numerous developments and acquisitions in Eugene, the Seattle area, and Spokane, Washington. The developer also has a significant footprint in California.

The developer has not yet selected an architect or general contractor for the Broadway bridgehead project, Rossman said.

Portland’s strong population growth is one of the economic forces driving the project, Rossman said. The Portland-Vancouver, Washington metro area gained an estimated 40,621 residents from 2014 to 2015, according to the Census Bureau.

Another driving factor is demand for urban housing, Rossman said.

“That’s more of a social trend that we’re seeing across the country, not just in the Pacific Northwest,” he said.

In many cities, established business districts are gaining residential units at a strong pace, he said.

The section of Portland around the Broadway bridgehead is likely to be transformed in coming years. The development site is near the 14-acre parcel that the PDC purchased in May from the U.S. Postal Service for $88 million. A preliminary framework plan calls for developing buildings totaling 3.8 million square feet, including nearly 2.1 million square feet of residential space.

The Broadway bridgehead project will use the city’s multiple-unit limited tax exemption, or MULTE, a Portland Housing Bureau property-tax exemption program.

The Wolff Company has had success in other cities using incentive programs that offer property tax abatements in exchange for affordable units, Rossman said.

“We’ve found that a great mechanism in the markets we work in,” he said.

The program is similar to others in Seattle and other cities, Rossman said.

“Ultimately, we look at that as the ability to provide immediate affordable housing, and the incentive allows an economic offset to the development cost to the developer,” he said.

The units could remain affordable for even longer than the 20-year period mandated by the MULTE program. The Wolff Company plans to employ tax-credit financing that would require the units remain affordable for 30 years, Rossman said.

The Housing Bureau last year revamped the MULTE program after it initially failed to attract developers’ interest. The agency raised an annual cap on the tax exemptions from $1 million to $3 million, and eliminated a rule that capped the return on market-rate units at 10 percent.

The PDC purchased the Broadway bridgehead property in 1987 as part of the larger Union Station acquisition, and it has since been redeveloped in pieces. The Wolff Company’s purchase follows a development process by Winkler Development Corp.’s that ultimately fizzled.

Winkler Development partnered with the PDC beginning in 2000 to build an office and garage project know as One Waterfront Place, but the development agreement was amended eight times to allow for additional time and other changes. The PDC terminated the agreement in 2011 when construction still had not begun.

The agency listed the property with CBRE in June 2015. The listing garnered two offers: a $2 million offer from a limited liability company backed by Winkler Development, and the $9 million offer from The Wolff Company.

“We’re certainly glad we’ve been able to come to a place with an acquisition,” said Anne Mangan, a PDC spokeswoman.

The city saw 5.1 percent annualized rent growth during the second quarter – still robust, but below double-digit rates seen recently, according to Portland State University’s Center for Real Estate. The regional vacancy rate was unchanged at 3.5 percent, suggesting a landlord’s market.

A wave of multifamily construction is under way in the Portland area. To date this year, 95 building permits have been issued in the metro area for structures of five units or more, totaling 3,813 units, according to PSU.

The Wolff Company’s project will help address a need for multifamily housing in Portland’s urban core.

“We can use more,” Mangan said.

The project was approved earlier this month by the PDC’s board without any questions. Mark Edlen, a board member and a developer himself, lauded The Wolff Company for its proposal.

“Welcome to Portland,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

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