Proposed Stadium Fred Meyer store (image courtesy Group Mackenzie)
BY FRED LEESON
Often it seems that the buildings that sustain us with food and the necessities of life are among the most ugly we encounter. Think Wal-Mart, Costco, or even the revamped Safeway on Hawthorne Boulevard that reopened to dismal reviews earlier this year.
Perhaps the same will NOT be said about a remodeled Stadium Fred Meyer, which is currently on the drawing boards at the Group Mackenzie architecture and planning firm. With a not-so-gentle prod from the Portland Design Commission, the evolving Fred Meyer plan shows respect for pedestrians, its prominent West Burnside frontage and gives a subtle nod to Burnside history.
But let’s backtrack for a moment. Fred Meyer plans to tear down the long vacant Hollywood Video store and fill the parking lot that also faced on West Burnside. Group Mackenzie came to the Design Commission last year for two advisory meetings. In the first, the firm presented a “suburban-esque” design with corner-defining mini-towers topped with hipped roofs. The design reviewers voiced the kind of criticism that would have improved the Hawthorne Safeway project, had it been located in a design zone designated by the city. One commissioner called the hipped roofs “party hats.”
“We had a more suburban approach and everyone hated it,” said Terry Krause, one of the Group Mackenzie architects.
To its credit, Group Mackenzie returned with a design that much better reflects its high-density urban location. The firm also met six times with the aggressive Northwest District Association land-use committee, which ranks high among Portland’s neighborhood watchdog groups. “We are well-pleased with the evolution of this project,” the committee chair, John Bradley, testified last week – words seldom heard by other Northwest Portland developers.
The revised plan adopts a brick-faced arcade along the sloping Burnside frontage, ranging from two levels at NW 20th Place to four levels at NW 20th Ave. The main entrance to Fred Meyer will be at 20th Place, while the 20th Avenue corner will include two tenant-retail spaces to activate the eastern edge.
The arcade will provide a covered pedestrian space 10 feet wide, in addition to the 15-foot sidewalk. Krause said the Burnside frontage will include Fred Meyer’s floral shop and a seating area in addition to the two retail spaces near 20th Avenue.
Krause and Ryan Schera, a Group Mackenzie land-use planner, said the arcade theme evokes older arcade-like buildings along East Burnside. “We think it will be a wonderful addition to the neighborhood,” Krause said. In what could be taken as a dramatic understatement, Schera said the design “would be a fairly significant departure from other Fred Meyer stores.”
There are a few modest quibbles to be resolved before the commission approves the final plan, likely to occur next month. One involves bike parking, and how to keep bikes from from cluttering up the front of the building. The current plan calls for bike parking in the ground-floor covered parking lot, but there are concerns that some cyclists will chose to lock on to street signs or any other secure post on the street, instead.
The proposed Fred Meyer blade signs also exceed the city’s sign regulations for square footage. Chris Caruso, the city planner assigned to the project, recommended approval anyway, saying, “We felt the signs were in keeping with the general size of the building.” Design commissioners seemed less sure. But they also laughed when Bradley of the neighborhood association noted the neighborhood “would lose the hideous free-standing internally illuminated sign” that sits there today.
The design commission is likely to approve the plan when Fred Meyer returns on October 18. Commissioner Ben Kaiser called the plan a “drastic improvement” over the first version. “It has come a long ways from what we first saw,” added Chair Gwen Millius.
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