There was a moment, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, when some owners of empty or underperforming spaces in Portland struck upon a common solution.

Live events, particularly concerts, would cure what ailed commercial landlords. Where retail was weak, events would prove strong. Where once had been a Nordstrom – a pillar of the increasingly musty anchor-store concept – there would soon be a Live Nation concert venue.

That was the driving idea at the Lloyd Center mall. And in the South Waterfront, plans for a mixed-use district at Zidell Yards had given way to a semi-temporary events venue with capacity for 10,000 attendees.

The venues would prove a keystone to thriving, walkable entertainment districts. 91��Ƶ would draw foot traffic. While there, attendees surely would spend money at adjacent retail shops, restaurants and bars.

At the time, concert venues were hot – a JLL report in May 2019 noted a burst of facility renovations, including a $56 million auditorium upgrade in Philadelphia and a $35 million amphitheater update in Atlanta.

Remember when we used to go to concerts?

That concept collapsed sometime around March 11, when the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, an NBA player tested positive for COVID-19, stock indexes fell precipitously and actor Tom Hanks announced on Instagram that he had contracted the virus.

Suddenly crowds, particularly indoors, seemed like a terrible idea.

That left two notable Portland developments in the lurch.

The Zidell project has not moved forward since a Design Commission hearing in October. The project appears to be on pause. Tom Henneberry, chief operating officer for ZRZ Realty, declined to comment, and referred questions to Live Nation, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Hacker was designing the venue.

“We are currently not engaged in work on this project,” Audrey Alverson, the architecture firm’s marketing director, stated in an email.

At the Lloyd Center, Cypress Equities had inked Live Nation to a long-term lease in 2018 to build a concert venue. At the time, the mall’s manager said the venue could open in 2020.

Cypress Equities’ plans for the venue centered on a 4,000-seat theater and multiple secondary venues in the former Nordstrom space on the mall’s west end.

Cypress Equities, based in Dallas, did not respond to a request for comment. Live Nation Entertainment also did not respond to a request for comment. Live Nation, based in Beverly Hills, California, is a publicly traded company that earned $11.5 billion in revenue in 2019.

At the South Waterfront, the Live Nation amphitheater would connect from the western base of Tilikum Crossing. Plans submitted to the Bureau of Development Services described a 10,000-seat amphitheater featuring a performance stage, raised seating, a large plaza, trailers and other supporting structures, and a perimeter fence. The venue was “intended to occupy the site for seven years with the possibility of an extension.”

Design commissioners told the project team that the concert venue could improve its response to the surrounding area, particularly when the venue is not being used.

“The proposal needs to do more to relate to the neighborhood on a year-round basis,” Staci Monroe, a BDS reviewer, wrote in an October 2019 summary memo.

The project is “off to a good start … but has a long way to go,” she stated.

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Barry Cain, president of Gramor Development, paused to catch his breath at the top floor of a seven-story office building at The Waterfront Vancouver, near the Columbia River.

Workers below were finishing staircases and elevators. A block away, heavy equipment was being used to drive piles to support excavation of what will become the Indigo Hotel and condominiums. Construction management trailers occupied surface parking lots.

With breathtaking speed, The Waterfront Vancouver is becoming a real place. Restaurants are poised to open soon. White-collar professional firms have signed leases for office space under construction. Apartments could begin being leased as soon as next week. There will be parks, a seven-mile trail and a hotel.

“We wanted to get the project started and have a little bit of everything,” said Cain, whose company is managing the build-out of the 20-block site.

Visiting The Waterfront Vancouver these days is a bit like venturing inside a bee hive. Workers are everywhere – hundreds of them in brightly colored T-shirts and safety vests, shouting and stomping among scaffolding and staged equipment in a heat wave. The din of steel slapping into place is matched only by blaring backup alarms from construction vehicles and the roar of F-15 fighter jets taking off from Portland International Airport across the Columbia River.

The numbers give only a sense of the magnitude of the development – 3,300 residential units and 1.5 million square feet of office space. Robertson & Olson, a Southwest Washington firm, is the general contractor handling construction of the first three buildings.

“There’s a big, pent-up demand for this kind of development in Vancouver,” Cain said.

Gramor Development aims to attract many of the 70,000 workers who commute daily from Vancouver to Portland. Cain believes many companies have offices in Portland only because Vancouver lacked good options.

“We think pretty quick we’re going to get a lot more office interest,” he said.

Last week, McKean Smith, a law firm with offices in Portland and Hillsboro, agreed to lease 3,600 square feet in the Block 6 building, Gramor announced.

The legal practice joins Murdock Charitable Trust, Chicago Title and Fidelity National Title in taking office space at The Waterfront Vancouver. The Block 6 office building is more than 50 percent leased.

The Waterfront Vancouver started as a partnership among five parties from real estate and construction backgrounds who were eager to invest in Vancouver’s future. They jumped at the opportunity to land riverfront property when Boise Cascade decided to close a paper mill on the site and sell. Gramor Development agreed to lead the development with backing from retired managers of Kiewit Corp., a construction firm based in Vancouver. The partners formed Columbia Waterfront LLC.

“It sounded like something where you could come in and really change the face of the town,” Cain said.

The plan was never for Gramor Development to build everything itself, Cain said. Already, two blocks have been sold. Gramor sold Block 3 to Summit Development, which plans to break ground in January on a 12-story cross-laminated timber building with approximately 250 residential units and ground-floor retail space. Kirkland Development purchased Block 4, where ground has been broken for an 11-story tower that will have the 138-room Hotel Indigo and 40 condominiums.

Gramor Development is in negotiations on a deal for another block, Cain said.

“We’re happy to have someone come in and do it all,” he said.

Restaurants will open in the first wave in a bid to attract visitors. Sometime in August, WildFin American Grill will open. The seafood restaurant will have a sidewalk-facing window to serve fish tacos to outdoor diners on nice days. Twigs Bistro and Martini Bar is poised to open about a month later. Barlow’s Public House should open by the end of the year, Cain said.

The development is already attracting jet boat users interested in checking out a mast installed as a piece of public art. A 180-foot-long water feature from artist Larry Kirkland that maps the Columbia River and its tributaries is in development.

The Waterfront Vancouver is unfolding largely with public dollars. Columbia Waterfront laid the groundwork for the development with new streets or extensions of Columbia Way, Grant Street and Columbia Street. The development also contributed to construction of a railroad trestle that provided access to the property. The city of Vancouver is paying for the new park.

Calls to Vancouver officials were not returned promptly.

That stands in contrast to Zidell Yards in Portland’s South Waterfront District, where development has halted because of a disagreement between ZRZ Realty Co. and the city of Portland regarding the amount of public funding for streets and other infrastructure. In Vancouver, the developer largely paid for the infrastructure.

In comparison to Portland’s bureau structure, Cain praised Vancouver’s city manager-led government.

“The government here is effectual,” he said.­­

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The Zidell family’s dreams of transforming their 33 acres of South Waterfront property are on hold after the developers could not come to terms with the city of Portland on how much each side would contribute to public infrastructure at the site.

The impasse threatens to throw away years of work on the South Waterfront. The Zidells’ ZRZ Realty Co. proposed to build approximately 5 million square feet of residential, office and retail space on the west bank of the Willamette River.

All development and design work on Zidell Yards is halted, ZRZ Realty President Jay Zidell said Monday.

Talks with city bureaus fell apart over costs concerns, according to interviews with ZRZ and city officials. The construction of Zidell Yards would have required millions in local government spending to extend Bond Avenue through the site and help pay for parks and the Greenway Trail.

“We had one view of how that needed to be funded, and the city had a different view,” Zidell said. “At the end of the day, the city’s position required ZRZ to make a substantially greater investment that impairs the returns on the buildings to the point where we do not believe we could go to the capital markets and get the capital we need to do the buildings. It kind of collapsed on itself.”

The two sides mutually terminated a development agreement last week. It’s not clear where the South Waterfront goes from here.

“We don’t currently have Plan B,” Zidell said. “We’re picking up the pieces and figuring out what to do.”

The phased project would have remade a long-neglected former industrial area just south of downtown Portland that city leaders believe could be home to dense housing and commercial development.

ZRZ and Prosper Portland forged a development agreement in 2015 calling for the city to spend $23.7 million on public infrastructure in conjunction with Zidell Yards. After further study on development needs and private financing, ZRZ’s estimate of the city’s needed contribution grew to $53 million. That’s as high as the city could go, said Lisa Abuaf, development manager for Prosper Portland. And then the price tag went higher.

“We weren’t prepared for investment beyond the $53 million,” Abuaf said. “They did a tremendous amount of work really putting detail on the vertical development needs and private financing analysis together with the public funding contribution, and we couldn’t get to an agreement on what that share would be.”

The city’s inclusionary housing rules were not a major obstacle, Zidell said. “That was a minor consideration in what really happened,” he said.

The Zidells have owned the South Waterfront parcels for decades. The site was used for building and scrapping barges by Zidell Marine Co. The last barge was launched in 2017 as the family firm shifted its focus to property development.

Substantial work has been done on design and planning for Zidell Yards. Sasaki Associates, a firm based in Watertown, Massachusetts, and Shanghai, China, completed a detailed master plan for the property in 2017 on which Place Studio and West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture also worked. SCB of Chicago and GBD Architects were engaged on building design. The Zidells also staffed up at ZRZ Realty, hiring experienced developers Thomas Henneberry and Sarah Zahn to guide the project.

The city remains open to the Zidells’ plans, Abuaf said. “We remain absolutely supportive of their vision,” she said. “Our lines of communication are certainly open.”

The decision to halt Zidell Yards could affect other major institutions in the area, including Oregon Health and Science University, a fast-growing employer and institutional developer, and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, which is pushing its own master plan across the river for a large-scale mixed-use development requiring new public infrastructure.

Regardless of the status of Zidell Yards, the city is committed to working on infrastructure priorities in the South Waterfront, including extending Bond Avenue and the Greenway Trail and providing affordable housing, Prosper Portland spokesman Shawn Uhlman said.

Zidell offered to meet with Mayor Ted Wheeler to discuss a way out of the impasse.

“Notwithstanding where we find ourselves today, I’d love to sit down with the mayor for both of us to roll up our shirtsleeves and figure out a way to put this back together,” Zidell said. “It’s just too big of a lost opportunity to the city to not figure out a way to get it done.”

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ZRZ Realty Company has chosen the first architectural team to work on its 33-acre Zidell Yards development in Portland’s South Waterfront District. The San Francisco office of Chicago-based SCB will design the Block 8 towers, with GBD Architects serving as the architect of record.

The towers, planned between the Barge Building and the Ross Island Bridge, could be as tall as 325 feet. The mixed-use structures will feature ground-floor retail space and residential units.

“We were certainly looking for team members that had high-rise experience,” ZRZ Realty Chief Operating Officer Thomas Henneberry said. “It really is a collaboration when you do buildings this large.”

SCB will serve as the design architect, while GBD Architects will handle local business such as construction documents.

The development team was looking for a complementary group of designers, Henneberry said.

“It has always been our plan to bring (on board) some national presence and … people from Portland that understand land use and the local process,” he said.

GBD Architects previously worked with landscape architect Place Studio on development of the master plan for the site. National firms Sasaki Associates and West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture also helped develop that plan, which was released in 2016.

The master plan for the site calls for 15 to 20 buildings. They’re expected to provide 1.5 million square feet of office space and 250,000 square feet of retail, grocery and dining space. Also, 2,600 residential units, 200 hotel rooms, 5,500 parking stalls and several parks and other public spaces are planned.

The Block 8 towers represent the first phase of that development.

“We’re thrilled that we’ve been given an opportunity to further our work in the South Waterfront,” GBD Architects Director Phil Beyl stated in a press release. “Zidell Yards is not only the new chapter of South Waterfront; it’s a chance to connect this neighborhood to the city as a whole.”

Block 8 will be the first large-scale residential project proposal since inclusionary housing rules – requiring inclusion of affordable units or payment of a fee – took effect in February 2017. It’s unclear at this point how the rules will impact the project, according to Henneberry, because design is in an early stage – currently, massing is the focus. The exact timing of delivery for the first building has yet to be determined.

“We don’t intend to build both (towers) at once,” Henneberry said. “The westerly tower will be first and easterly in a second phase.”

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Demand for office space will drive the pace of development at Zidell Yards, executives of Zidell Cos. said Wednesday.

Office tenants are needed to lure a grocery store – an amenity that South Waterfront residents have demanded for years.

“The office market is going to be a big driver of that, but yes, we do have grocery store operators that are interested,” said Jay Zidell, president of Zidell Cos.

The Zidells are pushing for redevelopment of the 33-acre Zidell Yards property in the South Waterfront. A master plan calls for 5 million square feet of space. That breaks down to 2.3 million square feet of residential units, 1.5 million square feet of offices, 200,000 square feet of retail space and 1 million square feet of parking.

Three parks will add life to the site, and two docks will provide access to the Willamette River, Zidell Cos. officials said.

The Zidells went public with their master plan in December 2016, and new details continue to emerge. Zidell Cos. officials spoke at a breakfast meeting Wednesday hosted by the Mittleman Jewish Community Center at Hotel Lucia in downtown Portland.

Cambridge Innovation Center, a co-working company that is looking for space in Portland, is one potential tenant at Zidell Yards.

“They’re very interested in coming to Portland and being part of this,” said Charlene Zidell, director of corporate relations and communications for Zidell Cos.

Oregon Health & Science University and Oregon State University also have expressed interest, she said.

At one time, Nike seriously considered the Zidell properties for a corporate expansion.

“Nike was interested in the entire site,” Jay Zidell said.

Instead, the shoe and apparel company expanded its existing headquarters in Washington County.

The Zidells, Charlene in particular, had qualms about turning over a large tract in the South Waterfront for a corporate campus, Jay Zidell said. Though he would welcome Amazon as a potential tenant, he said, Zidell Yards is not a good fit for a big corporate headquarters such as Amazon’s HQ2 proposal.

“We do not have the capacity to offer 8 million square feet of office or anything else,” he said. “That’s not consistent with the family’s vision for the site.”

Zidell Yards is likely to include some affordable housing, Charlene Zidell said. She’s had discussions with EngAGE Inc., a nonprofit group based in Burbank, California, that provides arts programming for senior housing, she added.

The family wants to learn the community’s ideas for how best to use the property, Charlene Zidell said.

“We’re not going to sit in a back room and decide what is best for Portland and build it and hope we like it,” she said.

The Zidells are also wrestling with how much parking to include on the site. It’s difficult for developers today to predict how transportation may change in the near future, Jay Zidell said. For now, most people drive their own cars, but that may soon change, he said.

“It’s a really challenging issue,” he said.

The developer cannot build underground parking on some lots because of environmental contamination. Yet the Zidells still plan to build plenty of parking.

“We plan to build as many parking spaces as we are allowed to build,” Charlene Zidell said.

The Zidells have decided to keep the existing barge building, although it will likely look much different after redevelopment, with only the shell left intact.

Redevelopment of the site became possible after the Zidells completed environmental remediation in the Willamette River in 2011, following prods from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The Zidells installed an 8-acre sand cap in the river and cleaned up the shoreline, where vegetation has begun to regrow.

The river and west riverbank were contaminated after decades of building and dismantling barges on the site.

The Zidells had long considered redeveloping the property. In recent years, the Zidell Marine shipyard had become increasingly constrained by development on three sides.

“It was becoming much more difficult to conduct our business on the site,” Jay Zidell said.

On Sept. 21, 2016, Zidell told employees the barge they were building would be the company’s last.

The redevelopment of Zidell Yards comes as other large master-planned developments are growing closer to fruition, including the Broadway Corridor, The Waterfront in Vancouver, Washington and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry campus.

“We have a truly unique, remarkable and maybe once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Jay Zidell said, “and our real challenge is to not screw it up.”

The post A vision for 5 million square feet appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Zidell family, in the wake of its decision to close Zidell Marine Corp.‘s shipbuilding business, is unveiling plans to develop 5 million square feet of mixed-use space in the South Waterfront.

The massive redevelopment of the Zidells’ South Waterfront properties would include 15 to 20 buildings at full build-out. The Zidells plan to construct 1.5 million square feet of offices, 250,000 square feet of retail, grocery and dining space, 2,600 residential units, 200 hotel rooms, 5,500 parking stalls and several parks and other public spaces.

The existing shipbuilding facility is slated to be refurbished and reused as retail space.

And, yes, there are plans for a grocery store, a longtime demand of South Waterfront residents who currently must leave the neighborhood to buy groceries.

“We really want to try to make this village, this area, a really wonderful place to be,” said Tom Henneberry, chief operating officer of Zidell Yards.

Construction of the initial projects is slated to begin in late 2017.

Plans for Zidell Yards are emerging after years of intermediate steps. A briefing for the Portland Design Commission was canceled Thursday because of inclement weather.

The Zidells have held the South Waterfront properties for more than 80 years. The family’s holdings span 33 acres on the west bank of the Willamette River bisected by the Ross Island Bridge.

Much like at the Portland Development Commission‘s 14-acre U.S. Postal Service site in Northwest Portland, or Gramor Development‘s 33-acre The Waterfront development in Vancouver, Washington, Zidell Yards represents an opportunity for a large, master-planned, urban community within the Portland-metro area. Planners and developers can start almost from scratch while building into existing infrastructure.

The exact mix of retail, office and residential uses could change in response to market demand, Henneberry said. The development is expected to have a 15-to-20-year phased build-out.

Some of the buildings will reach the 250-foot height limit allowed under zoning code. Eight buildings are envisioned as residential. The barge facility is planned as a 90,000-square-foot retail anchor.

Henneberry hopes to see a retail anchor tenant open in fall 2020. A residential tower would follow in spring 2021, and a grocery store later in 2021.

“The grocery store is a big deal,” he said.

After a grocery store is in place, office users may follow, Henneberry said. ZRZ Realty has already been in talks with hotel and grocery operators.

In September, Zidell Marine Corp. President Jay Zidell said the family’s decades-old shipbuilding business would deliver its last barge in 2017, launching around June 1. About 60 employees will be laid off. The move to get out of the shipbuilding business came as barges have grown too large for Zidell Marine to build at their facility.

“He felt that the timing was right,” Henneberry said of Jay Zidell’s decision to close the shipbuilding business.

The decision has opened up possibilities for Zidell Yards. Previous plans had to work around the marine facilities.

“They really didn’t have much opportunity to plan here,” Henneberry said of earlier efforts.

The Zidell family has no plans to sell any of its South Waterfront property.
“At this point, we want to own everything that we’re developing,” Henneberry said. “We’re not looking to sell land to other developers.”

The Zidells’ land includes substantial river frontage that was used to moor barges. Much of that land will be converted into a publicly accessible greenway.

The new developments would join The Emery, a ZRZ Realty residential-over-retail tower with 118 apartments that was completed in 2013. The retail spaces are occupied by Ecru, a stationery store, and a pet supply retailer that is due to open soon.

For residents, the prospect of further growth in the South Waterfront promises to add amenities and enhance vehicle access, particularly from the congested South Portal.

ZRZ is working closely with the Portland Bureau of Transportation and other agencies to improve transportation access for vehicles.

PBOT’s South Portal plan would extend Bond Avenue and turn it into a one-way southbound street. Moody Avenue would become a one-way northbound street.

“We’re trying to make the center of gravity of this whole neighborhood Bond Street,” Henneberry said.

Extending Bond Avenue will be a boon to residents, said Len Michon, chairman of the South Portland Neighborhood Association.

“That will certainly be a big benefit with regard to getting in and out of South Waterfront,” Michon said.

Plans for parks and open spaces are welcome, he said.

“We really want to have this be a very open community down here that anybody in the city would be happy to be in.”

Zidell Yards is due to take shape as major players transform the South Waterfront. Oregon Health & Science University’s $295 million Collaborative Life Sciences Building opened a couple of years ago, and construction is under way on the eight-story Knight Cancer Institute and expansions to the Center for Health & Healing.

Portland developer Cairn Pacific is working with property owner Prometheus Real Estate Group on plans for four buildings in the South Waterfront. Initial plans call for two seven-story residential-over-retail buildings facing the river on Block 41. Two larger buildings farther west of the river could follow.

“Over the next five or 10 years, I think we’re going to see a tremendous amount of development down here,” Michon said.

TriMet’s Tilikum Crossing has opened the South Waterfront to access by light rail and bicycle. Meanwhile, the Portland Aerial Tram has become a hub of commuting activity, with 10,000 riders a day.

“The public transportation is incredible,” Henneberry said.

Henneberry was hired in May to serve as master planner for Zidell Yards after months of consulting. He previously led development at The Yards in Washington, D.C., a 42-acre waterfront project.

The vision for Zidell Yards also encompasses wide swathes of public space. Gantry Plaza would be built at the base of the aerial tram where the Gantry crane is currently located. To the north, Meadow Park would connect the development to the street grid. Beneath Ross Island Bridge, smaller public spaces with uses such as half-court basketball or a dog park are planned.

The South Waterfront Greenway would stretch along the river. A dock is envisioned to extend into the Willamette, allowing access for recreationists.

“Obviously, we want to get people activating the river,” Henneberry said.

The post Zidell Yards master plan unveiled appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Plans to construct two new office buildings at Zidell Yards, in the South Waterfront District, may be on track to soon move ahead.

Block 4 and Block 6 were received well by the Portland Design Commission during a design advice meeting last month. Zidell Yards Managing Director Matt French believes that is a good sign that plans will receive the commission’s OK when type III design review takes place in January.

“It was very encouraging,” he said. “We put a tremendous amount of effort, collectively as a team, into this and it felt like a real endorsement of the work the team has put into it. Given the feedback we got, we had a really strong proposal. We’ll consider all the feedback and hopefully strengthen what we’ve got. We’ll get something approved and move forward.”

ZRZ worked on Block 4 and Block 6 with design firm LEVER Architecture and architect of record GBD Architects. Block 4 will sit across Moody Avenue from The Emery, an apartment complex that opened in 2013, and have six floors and 132,000 square feet. Block 6 will sit next to the Tilikum Crossing, and have five floors and 255,000 square feet.

“In general, they were good projects,” Design Commissioner Don Vallaster said. “They’re going to be good for the area.”

One of the key aspects that needs to be addressed before design review, French said, is the plan for building entrances and pathways. Commissioners suggested that the team considers including covered space rather than open space.

“That was the comment they had on both buildings in terms of the pedestrian experience when it’s raining,” French said.

Commissioners’ comments were helpful, he said.

“When you’re not immersed in the project every day, you get a different perspective,” he said. “The feedback we got from them was very constructive.”

Block 4 was designed to fit with surrounding infrastructure, including The Emery, The Gantry food cart pod and the Portland Aerial Tram.

While the commission liked much of the design, Vallaster said that Block 4 “is going to need a little more work.”

However, Vallaster and the other commissioners were very impressed by Block 6.

“My guess is Block 6 needs very little for approval,” he said. “We thought it was a really nice, strong design. We liked the clarity of it.”

Block 6 will essentially be two buildings connected by a bridge. Each floor will be about 52,000 square feet, which will allow for huge open floor plans that French believes will be desirable for health care and technology companies.

French was ecstatic about the commission’s initial response to the design.

“Overall, seeing their enthusiasm for the type of architecture we’re proposing down here was really exciting,” French said. “Block 6, specifically, is not your traditional building. To see the Design Commission support doing something nontraditional down here and stretching the boundaries a little bit was really great.”

Ultimately, the project team wants to finish Block 4 and Block 6 by 2018. Last month’s meeting before the Design Commission was a positive first step, French said.

“These are huge milestones,” he said. “It’s hard to articulate the excitement around here for everything that’s happening.”

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The opening of the Tilikum Crossing has given the public a never-before-seen view of Zidell Yards, a massive open space along the west bank of the Willamette River. The public shouldn’t get too used to the view, though. ZRZ Realty Co. Inc., which owns the property, doesn’t plan on keeping it the same for very long.

On Monday, ZRZ submitted the designs for Block 4 and Block 6 at Zidell Yards to the Portland Design Commission for review. The commission will discuss the projects on Sept. 24.

Working with design architect LEVER Architecture and architect of record GBD Architects, ZRZ has come up with two office buildings for the sites. Block 4, which will be six floors and 132,000 square feet, will be situated on Moody Avenue across from The Emery, an apartment complex in Zidell Yards that opened in 2013.

Block 6 will be situated next to Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People. It will be five floors and 255,000 square feet.

Matt French, managing director of Zidell Yards, said the buildings will fill a void of open floor-plan office space that currently is lacking in Portland.

“The goal of what we’re doing here is to build a different type of office building,” French said. “The companies (looking for offices in Portland) are not looking for what’s available. What’s available does not meet their needs. They want to be in creative space. They want to be in very open, very collaborative space. They want to communicate and interact much easier. They don’t want to be in Class A space. The office market for that kind of stuff is so tight right now.”

At 33 acres, Zidell Yards is the largest plot of undeveloped land in the city. The recent opening of the light-rail Orange Line and the development being done in the area by Oregon Health and Science University have made the time right for ZRZ to begin a decades-long process of development, according to French.

“You can’t underestimate the impact of the Orange Line,” he said. “Combine that with what OHSU is doing. Those are huge, huge things.”

With the expansion that the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is doing on the west bank and the Orange Line making OMSI just a hop, skip and a jump from the west bank, French said he believes the area around the Zidell Yards “will emerge as a new center of gravity for the city. A new city center, if you will.”

Block 4 will play off the surrounding areas of Zidell Yards, like The Emery, The Gantry food cart pod and the Portland Aerial Tram.

“It’s more about building on the context around it,” French said. “It really feels like it fits right there with the Emery. It’s nestled up against the Ross Island Bridge and the Emery. This is more about creating a little village out there, with the food carts and the tram. There’s an outdoor deck that looks out onto the Ross Island Bridge. And on the backside of this building, you’ll look down on the Emery.”

Block 6 is essentially two buildings that will be connected by a multi-level, glass-enclosed bridge.

“There’s no building like this in Portland,” French said. “Everywhere else in Portland has a tight, 200-by-200-foot grid. Which means pretty regular, square and rectangle types of buildings. Everyone who comes across (Tilikum Crossing) is going to look at this building.”

Each of the floors in Block 6 will be about 52,000 square feet, which will allow for huge open space floor plans that French believes health care and technology companies will find attractive.

“If you’re a 100,000-square-foot company, most buildings you’d have to locate across five floors,” French said. “That means there’s not cross pollination. It’s harder to communicate. Departments aren’t collaborative.

“(In Block 6), they would locate on two floors. There’s big common spaces in the middle. That’s one of the biggest competitive advantages, particularly for health care and technology companies.”

Because of the visibility of Block 6, French says his team is prepared for the fact that the Design Commission might focus more of its critique on that structure, rather than on Block 4. But he believes the project can stand up to the scrutiny.

“We earned a lot of credibility with them with The Emery. … I think these buildings match this level,” French said.

“We’ve spend a lot of time on these buildings,” he added. “These are very design-forward buildings.”

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A development agreement for Zidell Yards in Portland’s South Waterfront District has been delayed and probably won’t be on the Portland City Council agenda until next month.

Kathleen Mazzocco of Clear PR said the next time the development comes up for a vote by the City Council will probably be in mid- to late June. No date has been set.

Development on the 33-acre site will eventually deliver up to 3.5 million square feet of office, retail and multifamily space. Paperwork submitted to Portland’s Bureau of Development Services indicates that developers are also planning to add two office buildings on a brownfield site.

The post Decision delayed on Zidell Yards development appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Two more buildings and infrastructure improvements are in the works for Portland’s South Waterfront District.

The architecture firm working with ZRZ Realty Co. to develop the Zidell Yards on Feb. 9 applied to the city for early assistance with the next phase. Development on the site will eventually deliver up to 3.5 million square feet of office, retail and multifamily space.

Paperwork submitted to Portland’s Bureau of Development Services indicates that developers are planning to add two office buildings on a brownfield site, and that “improvements involve the construction of new utilities.”

Kathleen Mazzocco of Clear PR said the meeting is so preliminary that “there are no set plans at present,” including construction timelines.

Plans for the 33-acre Zidell Yards development provided in December by the Portland Development Commission show that the next parcel up for development – known as Block 6 – is located on Moody Avenue, south of and adjacent to the South Waterfront/Southwest Moody Avenue MAX orange line station.

Mazzocco said that one of the office buildings would be located in Block 4, and the other in Block 6.

Neither Matt French nor Dennis Allen – both of ZRZ Realty Co. – responded to phone calls requesting comment.

Uhlman said the PDC and ZRZ are still negotiating terms of a development agreement for Zidell Yards, but that the city plans to move ahead with infrastructure improvements in the district. For the remainder of this fiscal year and the 2015-16 fiscal year, Uhlman said the PDC will focus on design and construction of a portion of the roads that are necessary to support growth in the area.

“The work on the OHSU project is moving forward quickly,” he said. “And when you look at all the development and movement happening in the district, it needs the infrastructure in place in time to coincide with the opening of the Knight Cancer Research Building.”

Uhlman said no plans have been finalized, but note that the PDC would like to see streets and other necessary infrastructure in place by mid- to late 2018.

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