A couple of months ago we started the Diamond in the Rough series, about old buildings deserving of restoration. And I’d like to now introduce the Develop This Land series, devoted to parcels of land that may carry the potential for greater future use.
This land actually includes a building already, but I think in this case the building ought to be torn down: a Safeway along Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard that until fairly recently saw healthy business. With the arrival of a New Seasons grocery store nearby on Division Street, this old Safeway—one of those huge old single-story concrete buildings surrounded by surface parking—has seen both declining business and an ensuing identity crisis. It’s not as cheap as the discount stores and it definitely doesn’t have the array of great organic, local produce and specialty items that places like New Seasons, Whole Foods and Wild Oats.
I propose that the way for Safeway to survive is to follow the model of its sister store downtown, which vacated a similarly antiquated suburb-style, single-story building with surface parking and became part of Museum Place, with housing above the store. Sure, downtown is a different urban environment than Southeast, but I think in certain key pockets outside downtown tied to major auto routes and/or mass transit lines, the lessons of downtown are very applicable.
Safeway is not going to develop its own mixed-use building, but if the right developer approached them, like Shiels Obletz Johnsen apparently did with Museum Place in mind, this Hawthorne eyesore could become the latest of several emerging high-density mixed-use structures in Southeast Portland.
Perhaps whichever developer loses the Burnside Bridgehead sweepstakes ought to bounce back by turning this old Hawthorne Safeway into their next project.
Safeway would be gaining a spanking-new store, re-invigorating its now-marginalizing presence in the neighborhood, and its bet would be hedged with an automatic customer base living upstairs.
The neighborhood would get rid of a retail environment that doesn’t fit Portland’s pedestrian-oriented, high-density plans—namely a store that looks more like the kind of big-box retail we just fought to keep out of Burnside Bridgehead.
And whatever developer took on the project would have a highly desirable anchor tenant with housing in a very nice, close-in urban neighborhood within a few blocks of the very popular Hawthorne retail area.
If the right architect was chosen to design this, say for example Holst Architecture, who did so masterful a job with the nearby Belmont Lofts, you’d have a home run.
So if any of you are familiar with the likes of SOJ, Opus, Beam, Williams & Dame, Gerding-Edlen or any other of the developers who might be able to pull this off, tell them to have a drive out to 29th and Hawthorne for a look.
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