Recently Portland Architecture received an email from Rob Bennett, who previously headed the Green Building Division of the city’s Office of Sustainable Development but is now living in Vancouver, BC doing similar work for that city. Despite being a couple hundred miles away, Rob has been brainstorming about Portland, and I wanted to pass on some of his thoughts.
Specifically, Rob suggests we take a fresh look at Waterfront Park and Eastbank, “particularly in light of PDC's work in the Ankeny area and Central Eastside and their URA [Urban Renewal Area] extensions.”
After living in Vancouver for the past 10 months, it is clear what an asset like the seawall and corresponding parks system provides this city's residents. The key, of course, is all the dense housing that fronts the seawall. South Waterfront will be Portland's first foray into this, but how about Waterfront Park and the Esplanade?
As is well documented, Portland's waterfront park is an atrocious dead zone, designed for a handful of annual festivals a year. A new Waterfront Park design was adopted a couple years ago - what is happening with it? Has funding been identified? No one talks about it. How does the redesign of Naito impact the edge condition that disconnects buildings on the west from the park? How about a couple key areas where Naito Parkway could be tunneled for a couple blocks so that actual buildings front the park, providing more developable lots in downtown?
On the eastside, how is the Esplanade holding up, what are the use patterns, and how can it better connect to the water if ODOT [the Oregon Department of Transportation] were to sell land and activate the waterfront parcels under the highway? What is the status of moving the highway conversations? Can the Central Eastside ever be fully realized with that flipping highway running through it?
I love the idea of bringing focus back to this area - creating a downtown ring of amenities like play parks, perm music festival shell (a la Boston), water features, pedestrian bridge, restaurants, housing, etc. The Willamette between the steel and Ross Island bridges begs a radical visioning. I think Portlanders could get behind a bond measure to truly make it our living room.
Rob also has some ideas for the area around the Central Eastside Viaduct: turning the industrial area just south of OMSI "into a Granville Island [Vancouver] concept of light industry, artists retailers, artist live work.
Ross Island gravel will go eventually - what is the vision for that area? Portland could create a zoning and building code relaxation area so temporary building forms [could be allowed]: pallet construction, shipping containers, prefab. (How about a prefab factory?). Temporal building forms could support affordable housing and artist work spaces, temporary exhibits, etc.
Obviously Rob is throwing more questions than answers out there, and surely some will have knowledge of practical roadblocks getting in the way of some of these ideas. But I like the fact that Rob is throwing ideas out there. It's a healthy contribution to larger dialog. Much as we'd love to have him back in Portland, it seems a little outside perspective is helpful.
And if anyone else would like to submit some ideas for future posts, Portland Architecture is happy to oblige.
I'm getting close to twenty years living in this neighborhood with ODOT hanging on to amazing land that they've done nothing with. (And wh9ch has been a long-term eyesore, and neighborhood nuisance.) Its time to get them to either do something with it, or sell it.) Or maybe seize it and make it a people's park? Tee hee?
Posted by: Frank Dufay | July 17, 2006 at 08:35 PM
We just don't have the will to really do whats needed on both sides of the river. I mean look at the Naito parkway redesign. Everyone agrees the road is a huge detriment to the waterfront, so why not cut the lanes from 5 to 3, making it a more fitting size for that site? For some reason most American cities feel that the suburban commuters have priority of the city. Burnside has the same issue. If we want to compete with world cities then we need to seriously start taking back auto lanes and increasing the pedestrian environment. Vancouver BC waterfront is world class because it chose to protect it for the people of the city rather then give it over to suburban car travels. Seattle's waterfront vs. Vancouvers is a great example of the US priorities vs other nations.
Posted by: thedude | July 18, 2006 at 07:16 AM
Rob's line of thinking, extending into the far future, raises the question of how global warming will affect Portland. If you think about sea rise from melting of Greenland ice cap and West Antarctica and how it may affect Portland in, say, 50 years, one possibility is that it will force higher density to compensate for flooded areas. (Take a look at http://flood.firetree.net and a 7 meter sea rise, which floods the Columbia River flood plain, parts of Hayden Island and Sauvie Island, and parts of the Willamette Channel.) Re-organizing the city to accomodate flooding will be a headache but also an opportunity to reshape it.
Posted by: Mike O'Brien | July 18, 2006 at 02:08 PM
I understand there are plans in the works for some sort of futuristic parking/storage tower on part of the central eastside property between the Portland Spirit and Ross Island S & G. Possibly upwards of 20 stories in a tower. The project is being planned by a member of the Hannah family (of local Car wash fame).
An interior view of a tower similar to what is planned here can be seen at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/gate/archive/2005/10/19/dip.DTL&o=10
Posted by: val | July 19, 2006 at 11:18 AM