Potter, Sten and PDC Set Fire 1 Ablaze (Updated)

This morning's Oregonian headline reports: “Central Fire Station will not be relocated”.

This, in case you’re new to the discussion, was the relocation of Fire Station 1 from Ankeny Plaza to a few blocks north in Old Town. It was going to invigorate Ankeny Plaza with the opportunity for new housing and a public market on the site of a pretty ugly old fire station occupying prime riverfront land. There was also to be a Fire Bureau museum. In a post 9/11/01 world, I thought that was pretty cool.

There had been plenty of talk, of course, that budget problems were threatening the project, which Thomas Hacker Architects was designing after winning a city design competition. The budget, as today’s article by Anna Griffin reports, had risen from $22 million to about $30 million.

“In the past few weeks,” Griffin Continues, “Mayor Tom Potter, Commissioner Eric Sten and PDC executive director Bruce Warner and new PDC Chair Mark Rosenbaum met several times and opted to pull the plug. They wanted to avoid a public relations and fiscal debacle similar to the aerial tram connecting OHSU to the new South Waterfront neighborhood.”

This is a pragmatic decision that's unfaily influenced by the negative publicity surrounding the over-budget tram. I also see a short-term solution to a problem that needs a long-term view. I especially cringed after reading John Doussard, communications director for Mayor Potter, call this, "a great decision." Great? Even if you agree Fire 1 has to be killed because of the budget gap, the decision shouldn't be characterized as "great" but "with reluctance". What does this attitude say about the Mayor's commitment to architecture and urban planning in Portland?

The design competition that awarded Thomas Hacker Architects the job was extremely important as a demonstration on the part of the city that it’s committed to architectural excellence. They did a great job, attracting three very worthy finalists: Hacker, Allied Works, and an Emmons Architects/Hennebery Eddy partnership. This was important not just for Fire Station 1, but the precedent it would set. The City of Portland went two decades before holding a design competition after the bad feelings of Michael Graves’s Portland Building. This was going to be the clean slate that Portland architecture needed. Instead, they’ve made another blemish.

Certainly the budget gap is nothing to ignore. The city definitely had a problem on its hands after construction costs have risen and other factors contributed to the gap. But I still think there could have been some way to save the project. It's probably not fair for me to say this, but one of my first thoughts upon leaning of Fire 1's eradication was, 'Would Vera Katz have let this happen?'

Meanwhile, I encourage all who want (or wanted) the new Fire 1 to become a reality to make their voice heard, to give these leaders exactly the public relations fiasco they feared. Email Mayor Potter here, Eric Sten here, and PDC director Bruce Warner here. If others disagree, however—and I’m quite sure some of you will—thoughtful, civil articulations of such are, as always, welcome.

Looking ahead, we can expect the existing fire station on Naito to stay, with its back to Ankeny Plaza consisting of a walled-off parking lot. That will be something to address. And speaking of which, will Thomas Hacker Architects be designing the renovated station, or will a new RFP be issued? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Thinking about Fire 1 a day later, two thoughts emerge. If the moving of Fire 1 to Old Town was going to free up the existing fire station on Naito Parkway and Ankeny Plaza to become a probable mixed-use housing tower, why couldn't some of the value of that deal go toward the construction of a new Fire 1 station and museum? Even if the current mechanism doesn't allow for that, the collapse of the project ought to inspire some new thinking. Seems like a private-public partnership would be needed to make this happen. What developer out there would pay a few million for the right to make many millions on this site?

Also, because a special component of the new Old Town Fire 1 station was to be a museum, it seems like we ought to be involving some nonprofit cultural organizations to partner in fundraising for the museum, which seems to have been draining funds for the overall project. Firefighters are heroes, particularly after 9/11/01. Shouldn't there be a lot of people out there in the private  who would be eager to help such a museum come to fruition?

Let's grant PDC, Commissioner Sten and Mayor Potter the acknowledgment that the project couldn't be funded under the present circumstances. But instead of just killing the project, why not show some leadership in finding new avenues to approach things?

Comments

[torridjoe]

This is all about PDC, not the City. It was PDC who talked Fire into going for a new station rather than the planned remodel. It was PDC who assured everyone that by using the remodel money from the GO bond, there'd be no trick to scrounging up the rest.

IMO the problems started with the design competition. Strong aesthetics are important in public buildings--and several recently built stations are indeed bold and innovative while still being functional. But too much of the discussion and hype around this project concerned how the neighborhood could be transformed--rather than how the most important fire station in the city should be built. Two of the three designs seemed not to even realize what they were building, so concerned were they with the look and feel of the area.

Hacker's design, by contrast, concentrated on the nuts and bolts of getting several large emergency vehicles (they have six major pieces of equipment and several other SUV-type vehicles) in and out of the building as efficiently as possible. It also was a pleasant looking building.

Unfortunately, as I understand it, somewhere along the line a calculation formula got a wrong basis number plugged in, and realization costs got underestimated. Throw in the delay caused by dueling Naitos while steel prices rocketed upward, and now somebody needs to come up with another 10 million.

And so PDC came back to the City and essentially said "we need more money." The Fire Bureau had no more to give, and stuck to their guns. It was PDC's idea, and it's already in a renewal zone--let them figure out the shortfall.

Whether they couldn't find the money or simply got bored of the idea, I don't know. But this was PDC's baby all the way, and if it's not going ahead they have no one to blame but themselves.

More shocking to me than the headline--I kinda knew it was coming--was the idea that the neighborhood would be SO disappointed. BS. If it meant losing Saturday Market (which it probably did), I think on balance Old Town prefers things the way they are--especially if Mercy Corps takes the Global Antiques site instead.

[portarch]

torridjoe has always sounds like he knows so much - inside scoop? kinda makes you think he has a "spin" to serve. i know some people in the neighborhood and they are mad. looks like the mayor and sten got cold feet and don't want the heat. call it "tramitis." politics at the expense of buckling down and having some leadership & vision?

[catfish]

All Saturday market and their customers are pretty happy with the decision ... function over form.... but who says a remodel cant be beautiful ?

[Elbert]

"The City of Portland went two decades before holding a design competition after the bad feelings of Michael Graves’s Portland Building".
Brian, Let's not forget the ill- fated Mt Tabor Reservoir competition that attracted national talent. After the City went through an RFQ, a stipend for design ideas, sharing the ideas with the public, and then the award to a firm, the process went sideways and was eventually halted. Whether you agree on the idea of capping the reservoirs or not, it shows yet another example of the City starting a process that they cannot finish.