Century-old Portland Gas & Coke building set to be demolished

Portland Gas & Coke building (image via gascobuilding.blogspot.com)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

It's a building that pretty much no one in Portland has even entered for more than a half century, yet as soon as I mentioned its planned demolition on social media today there was a flurry of responses, laments and expressions of affection. People quietly love this building.

First constructed in 1913, the Portland Gas & Coke building looks, even in its decayed current form, too stately to have been a gas production and oil-tar distillation plant. After all, with its clock tower, sashes and gables it looks more like a Victorian train station (a bit like King's Cross in London) or an old city hall.

Which is why the news that owner NW Natural plans to demolish the building, possibly as early as next year, makes for sad news. A spokesperson confirmed the plans yesterday to me by phone.

Indeed, despite its grandness this building was purpose-built as a gasification plant, turning coal and oil into gasoline. (Offices also occupied part of the buiding.) As an extensive blog post from last year explains, for its first 12 years all the building's waste was dumped directly into the Willamette River. After 1925, the plant added tar refining operations; tars were removed from wastewater and placed in a series of ponds surrounding the buiding. By the time Portland GasCo (now NW Natural) shut down the plant in 1957, an estimated 30,000 cubic yards of coal tar had accumulated in the ponds, which were buried 10 feet underground in 1973. And even after that the site was additionally contaminated by another company that leased eight acres adjacent to the building. 

Portland GasCo building (top image by Robert Piacentini, bottom courtesy NW Natural)

The land that this building sits on is a textbook definition of a Superfund site. In fact, a 2001 report called this the second-most contaminated site in Portland. The building itself is not contaminated, and being made of concrete you'd think it would be fairly robust structurally, but NW Natural's representative told me the building is "structurally unsafe" and "not stable." If NW Natural or another entity had the impetus to clean up the site itself (which admittedly would be no easy or cheap task), I'd guess the structure could be repaired. But that seems exceptionally unlikely in this case.

Often a building's 100th birthday gives it an unofficial seal of approval as something historic, and therefore worth keeping. NW Natural has for decades allowed the building to keep standing as a kind of half-ruin.  As Portland Mercury reporter Sarah Mirk's 2011 story and photos indicate, the inside is in pretty deteriorated shape. Nothing within 100 yards of the structure shows any sign of life. And it's not as if it stands amidst a neighborhood that might be attractive to, say, the McMenamin's franchise that has renovated numerous old buildings around town into satellites in their chain of brewpubs and hotels. Yet be it McMenamin's or someone else, one could imagine the Portland Gas & Coke building, given its location along the river and in the shadow of Portland's most beautiful bridge (the St. Johns), renovated into some kind of hotel with extended grounds.

Superfund sites aren't easy to turn around, but there are countless examples all over the country of these toxic places being transformed. Why can't NW Natural summon some sense of community responsibility here? Certainly it's not the responsibility of a utility company to act as stewards of a city or region's most historic architecture. Yet the fact remains that a rich local company, one with a partial monopoly, is set to willfully demolish one of the most historic and beautiful works of architeture in the city. Maybe demolishing this building seems like the only plausible scenario given the contaminated nature of the site, yet I can't help but suspect that NW Natural hasn't really tried very hard to come up with a solution that would save the building. And if that's the case, it means the company is not a very good corporate citizen. What they're planning to destroy may be a contaminated building that's sat empty for a half-century, but behind the dust is an irreplaceable part of Portland's history and culture. In others' hands, it might have become a renovated destination.

Elevation renderings of the Portland Gas & Coke building (courtesy Gnarly Architecture)

At the same time, if this building does get demolished, we Portlanders should also blame ourselves. Once a building owner has committed to demolition, it means the time for deliberation has probably all but passed. There were literally decades that we preservationists could have been lobbying NW Natural or the city to clean up the site and the building, yet neither I nor anyone else took the time to do so. Shame on NW Natural, but shame on all of us as well. After all, how many of us have driven past the building and then continued on our way? It's unfortunate that the right developer or dreamer didn't come along and find the will to wrest the building from its disinterested owner years ago.

What makes the building's demise sadder is that if could have survived a few years longer the building's fortunes might have been changed. Portland, like cities around the world, is in a multi-generational process of reclaiming for public use riverfront land that used to be the fenced-off realm of heavy industry. Just upriver in nearby Linnton, for example, there have been efforts to create high-density housing and mixed-use neighborhood living. Given the natural beauty of the Portland Gas & Coke site, one could easily envision some future generation reclaiming this land as part of the working, open city. I can practically hear Portlanders two generations down the road trying to call back in time to us. But they're not current customers of NW Natural, or charged with Superfund cleanup, so their vote doesn't count.

Portland Gas & Coke (photo by Jody Miller)

That said, if any of you do want to contact NW Natural and express your displeasure, the email contact form is here. Chances are you'll get a boilerplate response and have little opportunity to affect the company's decision making, but perhaps if enough people in the community weigh in then NW Natural might have second thoughts.

If nothing else, though, the next time you're driving on St. Helens Road, pull over and have a look through the chain-link fence at this lovely old building. And if you feel angst about the demolition of this century-old gem, consider directing that energy toward saving one of the other historic and irreplaceable Portland structures that are similarly under threat, such as Memorial Coliseum and Centennial Mills. Preservationists know you can't save every building, or even a fraction of them. But if Portland is turning its back on one of its most compelling works of historic architecture, we can at least pledge that other great local buildings won't suffer from the same tone-deaf, bottom-line thinking.

 

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Comments

[Laura]

My husband's dad and grandfather, both doctors named Wilmot Foster, would visit this building weekly to minister to employees, my mother in law tells me.

[Byroncaloz]

Considering the tight-lipped responses over the past decade from company officials regarding their plans for the building, this is not a surprise. However, it is very sad. Perhaps the building is too far gone. With no occupancy a building will fall apart much faster. I have read accounts about the huge gas meter in the basement, probably long gone...but I always thought it would be a great visual element in a story set in early 20th century Portland. The building has character and its demise will be a great loss. If there was anything we could do to save it, move it, I would be on board.

[Brian]

"This building was purpose-built as a gasification plant, turning coal and oil into gasoline"

It wasn't making gasoline. The company was the predecessor to NW Natural and would have been making coal gas (or gas from oil, etc.) for things like gas lights and stoves. Today natural gas is used instead.

[Quite Frankie]

I personally feel that NW Naturals most important “sense of community responsibility” is keeping our stoves and furnaces on, especially when its 30 degrees out. 50 years it sat empty. I love this building too and appreciate the beauty and passion but more so I appreciate every mans right to take the ol’ girl out to pasture when it is no longer safe, economical or beneficial to the property owner. Its also anyones guess what might become of this river front property in 5,10 or 20 years. Detroit is dying everyday, I’d say Portland is pretty fortunate on the whole.

[Brian Libby]

Brian, thanks for the petrochemical clarification. Quite Frankie, I respect your evenhanded take on this - it's true that Portland is not Detroit and the loss of this building can be balanced against the generally good preservation record here overall. But watch those apostrophes. ;)

[Michael Gregg]

So sad. One of my favorite buildings in PDX. I had always hoped the McMenamin brothers would turn it into a gastropub/hotel/theater/day spa/etc. They could had out funky hazmat suits at the front desk. Just like Walter White. Hey, you forgot to include Richard Hoyen's beautiful watercolor of Gasco.

http://eccentricfieldguide.blogspot.com/2010/07/gasco.html

[Fred Leeson]

It's amazing to think of the care and design that went into a largely industrial building. We don't do it that way anymore, do we? I, too, am saddened by its prospective loss. I am also greatly saddened by corporate powers ducking responsibility to clean up the messes they've made. I know the web of responsibility is tangled, but notice how big business always gets somebody ELSE to pay for the clean-up.

[Turnernathaniel]

Great story. I can only imagine the long list of chores cleaning this place up, wow.

[benschon]

This building was the inspiration for the Unthank Home for Wayward Youth in Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis' book "Under Wildwood." http://kateberube.blogspot.com/2012/10/busy-busy-busy.html

[Susan Fitzgerald]

Wow, the preservation society should raise money selling prints of that Jody Miller photo. Looks like it belongs in some futuristic, dystopian movie.

If you want to save something, there's a great wooden Italianate house on SW 12th, downtown, that needs attention. Drive by, it's got chain link around it and a banner with info. Across from the restaurant, Brazil.

[Yojoslin]

In the years I oversaw Portland preservation functions, there was no building I so consistently received inquiries about than this one. Once or twice a year, an inquiry would come in, most wondering if there wasn't some way to preserve and protect it.

The building's been empty for decades. The great mystery for me has always been not what it was or whether it could be preserved, but why the company allowed it to remain for so long. As this chapter winds out, I think that'd be another worthy story unto itself.

Jeff Joslin

[Ann Williams Thomas]

Susan, that's the Morris Mark House. http://chatterbox.typepad.com/portlandarchitecture/2007/04/saving_the_morr.html

[Jay Raskin]

I have admired this building for years and I agree that it is sad that we are not preserving our industrial heritage that such buildings represent.

Interestingly,this building also represents problems associated with what is now called the Critical Infrastructure Energy Hub. It is the immediate zone that stretches along the Willamette River that contains not only NW Natural, but fuel oil, and electrical transmission lines, along with the petrochemical facilities. All of this built on alluvial soils and aging infrastructure.

It would be nice to imagine us reclaiming this land for the use of people. Right now, this area gives Portland's Bureau of Emergency Management nightmares of what could happen in a large earthquake with the mix of chemicals,fuel, and natural gas. All of this close to a the population of Linnton who would be trapped between this and Forest Park (itself a fire danger if the event happens in the summer).

The Oregon Resilience Plan identified this as one of the key risk areas in a Cascadia earthquake since the loss 95% of Oregon's fuel oil store there would impede both relief and recovery efforts.

The idea that we could reclaim this for the use people seems unlikely at this point. But maybe it is what we need to start rethinking where this hodgepodge of energy infrastructure and petrochemicals should be located. We are going to need to strengthen them to withstand an earthquake. Maybe we can spread them to multiple sites to get redundancy, and see if investments in alternative energy sources might look more attractive given the cost of upgrading these systems. Big plans might give bigger results. Whether this will save the Portland Gas & Coke Building is doubtful, but maybe it can lead to a greater awareness and discussion of this largely ignored area of Portland and Oregon.

[Brian Emerick]

This is one of those fantastic ruins that inspire the imagination, made especially vivid by the bleak landscape it's marooned in. As Jeff Joslin mentioned, it's surprising it has survived this long. For the record, we did include this in our 'Top 10 Most Endangered Buildings' when the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission addressed City Council a few years ago, so it has been on the minds of the Preservation Community and voiced in public as a concern for some time. Getting NW Natural to restore it for a user that doesn't exist on a superfund cleanup site seems highly unlikely. I do wish NW Natural would continue their previous policy however and let it remain, as it still has great value in its current state (as evidenced by all of the comments here) and seems to be causing no harm.

Brian Emerick, Vice-Chair, Portland Historic Landmarks Commission

[Landon Abney]

I'm not sure who this "Robert Piacentini" is that you credit the second picture to, but that is clearly a version of Paul Cedar's picture (found here) that has had the watermark partially cut from it.

[Brian Libby]

Landon, thank you for your concern, but the photo was actually used with permission. I did crop the image myself. Feel free to email me at [email protected] if this matter needs to be adjudicated further.

[Allan]

A story on NW Natural's plans to demolish this building was printed on Page 1 of the Northwest Examiner in November, a month before the Libby blog cited by Willamette Week as the first source.

[Brian Libby]

Allan,

You're right: the NW Examiner was the first to break this story, and they deserve full credit. I did not realize they'd broken the story until reading your comment, so please understand I was certainly not trying to take credit. In fact, I couldn't care less about being first. I just care about spreading the word about the building.