Aerial view of apartments near NW 19th & Johnson (rendering courtesy SERA Architects)
BY FRED LEESON
No other residential neighborhood in Portland has the same ambience as Northwest Portland below 23rd Avenue, with its dense assortment of cheek-by-jowl 1920s apartment buildings. Though dozens were built in the same decade, interesting and sometimes amusing architectural tricks kept them from having a cookie-cutter feel.
For that we can thank one of the city’s busiest architectural designers of that roaring era, who is now largely forgotten. But the name of Elmer Feig surfaced again recently as SERA Architects completed designs for two new apartment buildings that will sit cater-corner in the Alphabet Historic District at the intersection of NW 19th Avenue and Johnson Street.
The design team headed by SERA’s Kurt Schultz examined several of Feig’s 25 Northwest Portland apartment structures built mostly from 1925 to 1931. If that sounds like a lot of buildings, it is it less than a third of the 81 attributed to Feig throughout the city in roughly that same time span.
"Building B" pllanned for near NW 19th & Johnson (rendering courtesy SERA Architects)
Feig’s formula was simple enough: often three stories with daylight basements, finished in stucco or brick, recessed entry courtyards, double-loaded hallways, flat roofs and parapets. But then the fun begins. Schultz described some Feig buildings as having “jazzy Spanish” details, but that’s just for starters. Descriptors for others include Art Deco, Spanish Colonial, Mediterranean, Moorish, Tudor and even Egyptian.
For someone who apparently was never registered as an architect, Elmer Feig was a busy man with a crowded palette. The Great Depression cut his career short, however, and little of his work has surfaced with a date past 1931. His final listing in a city directory was 1937. He died in 1968 at age 71.
The SERA team looked to Feig’s work for some of its design cues in an attempt to satisfy the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission that its plans were an appropriate fit for the historic district. As the city planning report noted, “Inserting new development into historic district contexts is a process that must weigh many variables against one another. Perhaps the most difficult balance to strike is between economic viability, which tends to dictate maximizing size, and a mixed historic development pattern.”
The developers of the two new market-rate buildings, Mill Creek Residential Trust, compromised on that point. The original plans called for six-story buildings and the final versions came in at five. Yet that was too much for one landmarks commissioner, Harris Matarazzo. He described the designs as handsome, but believed they were still too large given their proximity to three nearby smaller buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. He cast the lone opposing vote in a 4 to 1 final tally.
"Building A" near NW 19th & Johnson (rendering courtesy SERA Architects)
Both SERA buildings will have similar rusticated first floors, but that is the only similarity. The larger “Building A” with 86 apartments, will have a stucco finish, parapets and circular decorative medallions, a playful touch of which Feig no doubt would have approved. Across the street, the smaller “Building B” with 48 units will have the second, third and fourth floors wrapped in brick with a fifth floor sheathed in stucco panels. Building B includes a flat projecting cornice, unlike its companion.
In Northwest Portland, where an aggressive neighborhood association watches land-use matters with hawk-like vigilance, the concern was more for the fate of four century-old elm trees on Johnson Street than the architecture. The neighbors felt the trees deserved as much protection by the Landmarks Commission as the built environment, since the national historic district description includes the significance of the trees. The city planning staff concluded that the commission’s jurisdiction did not include the public right-of-way on which the trees sit.
Schultz said the development team would try to protect and preserve the trees, but there is no guarantee as to the outcome. The protective steps will include hand demolition of a single-story building on the site of Building A, a reduction in underground parking to leave more room for the tree roots, and careful scheduling of construction equipment to minimize damage. Yet it may take five to seven years to determine whether the trees survive, Schultz said.
While Schultz likely will not match Feig’s output in total Northwest Portland apartment buildings, the SERA team has a accumulated a good feel for the neighborhood’s architecture and has been diligent in meeting with neighborhood representatives. They also met several times five years ago when SERA was designing a larger apartment complex that today sits comfortably at the eastern edge of Couch Park on N.W. 19th Avenue between Glisan and Hoyt Streets.
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This typology is the bread and butter of N.W.
Kurt and SERA have got the right touch. Nice!
The main issue remaining? Can the developer pony up with the money and the architects follow through with the proper details and materials to make it timeless? Example: Building "A" Steel windows, wall thickness and masonry rustication at base are projected in the rendering. Do these critical elements get value engineered out? Lets hope not.
Posted by: Eye Eyeball | June 06, 2012 at 12:33 PM
It's nice to see that SERA has FINALLY taken some of the historic nature of our neighborhood into consideration. These buildings do look to be appropriate for their location. BUT don't trust SERA. They will do whatever it takes to push their buildings through. This is what happened at the building on the eastern edge of Couch Park. The staff of the landmarks commission did not recommend passing the building because it was too massive (and too tall), yet somehow it still got pushed through. (A member of the commission-Peter Meijer-that vehemently fought for the building to be passed, and had previously been employed by SERA, later resigned when asked to disclose all his sources of income). SERA definitely will value engineer out critical elements of these buildings, as they have done in the past. Hopefully, there are enough members on the landmarks commission that are not in SERA pockets to keep these buildings appropriate for the Alphabet District.
Posted by: Goldwynd | June 06, 2012 at 04:27 PM
The building at Couch park did not "somehow get pushed through". It was a challenging process for all, given the scale of the project and sensitivities around the park.
The design advanced incrementally through the process, adapting and evolving in response to neighborhood, staff, and Commission concerns.
As these projects are now approved, the intimation that the projects will be cheapened seems unfounded. I have not tracked the project, but the Commission and staff are extremely detail-oriented: those elements that concern has been expressed about I suspect to be fully embedded in the approved drawings. But to those in the neighborhood concerned about such elements, I'd suggest, rather than jabbing at SERA for a project you appear to like, that you scrutinize and testify to ensure theses elements are indeed fully and appropriately memorialized in such decisions.
The implication that there's a connection between that earlier project/decision, Peter Meijer's one-time (many years earlier) employment, the nature of his role in decision-making, and his resignation from the Commission is entirely mis-placed. He consistently advocated and voted from his passionate and sophisticated preservation sensibility. That disclosure issue was problematic throughout the state for citizen-contributors who felt the disclosure information to be inappropriately and unnecessarily invasive. Some refused to provide the demanded information, daring the state to come after them or their respective municipalities, others resigned on principle. This was a demonstration of Peter's integrity (there are many), not the implied opposite.
Jeff Joslin
Posted by: Yojoslin | June 08, 2012 at 11:04 AM