Portland Architecture

The Pearl's tallest tower: Boora's John Meadows on Block 15

Block 15 (rendering courtesy Baumberger Studio)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Over the past 15 years we have watched the Pearl District rise to become a cultural and residential heart of the city center, with a one-time urban fabric of industrial warehouses and rail yards give way to condos, apartments and parks.

In the early days of the Pearl, when the focus was mostly on its southern edge - particularly the Brewery Blocks development - much of the architecture aped that architectural language, often favoring materials like brick. And the buildings were multistory yet not at the heights of, say, the point towers of Vancouver, British Columbia.

But as development has turned in recent years to the northern edge of the Pearl District, the buildings have been more glassy, slim and contemporary. That slowed for a few years during the Great Recession, but today the real estate economy has returned, with numerous tall apartment and condo buildings planned. None are taller than the 168-unit, 28-story condo tower breaking ground this summer, which is for now known as Block 15.

Situated between Tanner Springs Park and the Fields Park, the quarter-block tower will rise 340 feet, making it not only the Pearl's tallest building but one of the tallest in Portland, with only five buildings rising higher, all downtown: the Wells Fargo Center (Charles Luckman), US Bancorp Tower (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), KOIN Center (ZGF), PacWest Center (Hugh Stubbins & Associates), Fox Tower (TVA Arhitects) and Standard Insurance Center (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill). Block 15 will be 15 feet higher than the South Waterfront's tallest building, the John Ross Tower (TVA Architects).

Block 15 (rendering courtesy Baumberger Studio)

Recently I spoke with Boora principal John Meadows about Block 15.

PORTLAND ARCHITECTURE: What were some of the starting points in terms of zoning/height allowance that gave shape to the design? Is this site zoned to allow more height than other parts of the Pearl?

JOHN MEADOWS: A few years ago we did the Hoyt Master Plan, which proposed greater height and density on Hoyt’s undeveloped north property. The City then did a new North Pearl District Plan, which resulted in increased density for most of the North Pearl (9:1 floor area ratio) and a very innovative height limit, which had a provision for increased height limited by FAR and floor plate size. A small floor plate allowed height essentially limited by FAR. This was set as an incentive to build tall thin buildings rather than the more affordable slab-like buildings common in the Brewery Blocks.

While most like the idea of tall thin buildings with small floor plates, they are very expensive. The additional exterior envelope area, the increased structure costs, and the added elevators and stairs make these point towers extremely costly to build in Portland. Block 15 is Hoyt’s best site, located between two parks, and Hoyt wanted this site to be distinctive and high quality. Hoyt wanted this project to be a point tower that embodied the aspirations of the North Pearl Plan and to be a distinctive building in the marketplace. The initial program was to have a floor area between 8,000 and 8,500 square feet in area and be the tallest building possible given available FAR and other zoning requirements.

One particular issue with Block 15 is that its location south of The Fields Park allowed the increased height but required the new building to cast shadows on the park no greater than a building of the base FAR would (225 feet tall). Our final design has a tower floor plate of around 8,400 square feet and 28 stories tall.

Could you talk a little bit about the use and placement of balconies as an aesthetic or practical choice? In the rendering I've seen, they seem to emphasize the building's verticality, especially in the upper portion - almost making it look like two slimmer towers instead of one.

As one of our goals was to make the tallest thinnest building possible, we also explored ways to make it appear taller and thinner than it is and to create a special amenity for the units.

We created inset decks as outdoor rooms in all the tower units. These inset decks cut into the crystalline glass massing of the tower and essentially create the appearance of four smaller thinner connected glass volumes (one at each corner) and emphasizes the towers verticality. The placement of these cuts and their offsets as they move up the tower also serve to create a more sculptural massing for the tower.

Block 15 (rendering courtesy Baumberger Studio)

These inset decks have a much more functional purpose, which is to provide all tower units with a more comfortable and useable outdoor living space. These inset decks provide protection from rain and wind year-round and a greater sense of comfort for people uncomfortable with tall buildings. The decks are also squarer than the typical long, thin, cantilevered decks, making them better living spaces for tables and chairs. By placing these inset decks next to rather than in front of the living rooms, these decks don’t block the views like most cantilever decks, which often occur in front of the living rooms. 

Boora has designed at least two other major Pearl District towers, the Metropolitan and the Encore. What have you learned on those projects that might have influenced this design? What, if anything, is/was different about the process?

Boora designed the Metropolitan and the Encore and we have learned a great deal about the North Pearl and Hoyt’s aspirations and requirements. 

Hoyt has tremendous experience designing and selling high-density residential units and they understand the market, what buyers want and need, and how to distinguish each building in the marketplace. They have taught us a great deal about everything from overall building planning down to details about the implications of door swings on function, sight lines, etc.

The Metropolitan was a design competition as Hoyt was seeking a new direction in design, quality, and density. As such we designed the building once for the competition without Hoyt and then designed it again with Hoyt after we were selected, to assure that it worked better. 

The Encore was a more typical design process working with Hoyt from the start and we developed the program and the design direction together.

As Block 15 is the best site Hoyt has with a presence on two new parks and the streetcar, Hoyt wanted this project to reflect another new direction in design, density, and quality. The program to create a tall point tower and a luxury condominium better than any that exists in the city led Hoyt to do another design competition. 

Boora designed this building based on Hoyt’s competition program and goals and we used our long-term experience with Hoyt and experience with the North Pearl Plan to create a new building unlike any they have built, and yet one that we think fits Hoyt’s needs, aspirations, and the market. We understood how important this project was to Hoyt and to the North Pearl District and we worked extremely hard to do our best work. I had an extremely strong team at Boora and I think we created what will be one of Portland’s best towers. 

After Boora was selected to proceed with the project, we worked intimately with the Hoyt team to refine the competition design although the design remains fundamentally like that designed in the original competition and approved by the Design Commission.

Could you talk a little bit about the immediate context of the northern Pearl district with the Fremont Bridge and the Fields park? It has a different feel from the southern portions of the Pearl developed in prior years. How did that influence your design? 

When we did the Hoyt Master Plan, prior to the North Pearl Plan, we understood how the North Pearl was and would be different than the south Pearl The south Pearl has less open space, more retail and services given its proximity to downtown, and the areas that are dense, like the Brewery Blocks tend to be full block slab-like buildings. The Brewery Blocks also tend to be darker in color – maybe in response to some of the older existing buildings. These buildings tend to be red, grey, green, etc. Our aspiration for the Hoyt Master Plan was to create a setting around The Fields Park that was more open, with greater views and light, and to create a district of buildings that might be lighter in color and more crystalline in character. We thought about the variety of light or white buildings around Pioneer Square and how they help unify that open space and brighten our otherwise grey winters.

Block 15 (rendering courtesy Baumberger Studio)

We also imagined the buildings in the Hoyt Master Plan to be taller with smaller floor plates where possible to increase the potential for light and view. The City’s North Pearl Plan expanded our Hoyt Master Plan thinking to allow and encourage even taller thinner buildings in this district. 

The design of Block 15 also took into account the unique setting with The Fields Park to the north and Tanner Springs to the south. The Fields Park provided long views to the north, which are essentially protected as the few development sites along the river, north of The Fields have a much lower height limit. Most buyers prefer southern exposure and views in Portland towers although Block 15 has the benefit of amazing views in every direction with the northern views being expansive and dramatic, essentially making all units ‘view’ units. This is an easier goal to achieve when there are only 2-5 units on a floor and most units are corner units.

 

Advertisements

Two Portland buildings named to AIA's 2014 Top 10 Green Projects list

Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Courthouse (photo by Nic Lehoux)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Yesterday two local projects by Portland firms were named to the American Institute of Architects Committee on The Environment's annual Top 10 list of the nation's best sustainable designs: the Bud Clark Commons by Holst Architecture and the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building modernization by Cutler Anderson (of Bainbridge Island, Washington) in partnership with SERA Architects.

The two projects join a handful of Oregon buildings that have been named to the list since its inception in 1997, but with increasing regularity in recent years, including the Mercy Corps headquarters (designed by THA Architecture), PCC Newberg (designed by Hennebery Eddy) and the Hood River Middle School Music & Sciences building, all in 2012, as well as 12 West (by ZGF) in 2010, Eugene's Wayne Morse US Courthouse (by Santa Monica, California's Morphosis) in 2007, and the Bank of Astoria (by Tom Bender with SERA). The Lloyd Crossing Sustainable Design Plan by Seattle's Mithun was also named to the list in 2005.

"We are very excited to have been selected for this award because it recognizes the importance of uniting good design and sustainability," SERA's Lisa Petterson said by email. "Working with our design excellence partner, Jim Cutler, to integrate place-based/climate requirements early really enhanced the design. The biggest lesson learned from the EGWW project was how important having specific performance targets was on creating a culture of success both for sustainability and design."

(You can click here for a 2012 interview I did with James Cutler about the Wyatt for this blog, or click here for a 2013 interview I did with Cutler about the buiding for Architect magazine.)

The Wyatt Federal Building Project was originally planned as an occupied remodel, but was restarted in 2009 by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) as a more extensive re-imagining that existing 18-story, 512,474-square-foot office tower (orignially completed in 1974) stripped down to its steel framing. ARRA legislation required the design team to meet the requirements of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), including 55% fossil fuel reduction (compared to a code-designed building), 30% energy usage reduction, 20% indoor potable water reduction and 50% outdoor potable water reduction. "Having a specific goal to meet allowed the team to determine if they were meeting the goal, and to keep designing until the goal was reached," Petterson added.

Looking up at the EGWW's west facade (photo by Brian Libby)

The Wyatt used to be a drab, forgettable office building. Now, it stands out in a big way because of two bold design moves: the exterior screens shading the west facade, and the slanted top. Both are based in sustainable, functional design moves: filtering glare with the screens and optimizing solar panels with the diagonal roof. But each is also an aesthetic move, so much so that the building has an almost post-modern quality.

It's a trend I have increasingly noticed amongst leading-edge sustainable design projects. The Bullitt Center in Seattle, for example, which is the first US office building in the United States to meet rigid Living Building Challenge standards, has an almost cartoonishly large roof that stretches seemingly for acres past its facade. It's done to maximize diffuse natural light without glare, a worthy functional effort, yet aesthetically it seems to have an oversized sense of proportion. I'm unquestionably a fan of the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt, but if I were judging it on a purely aesthetic basis its to signature moves, the facade screens and the slanted top, would seem too large.

Thankfully when you achieve such optimal performance as the Wyatt does, we needn't judge the building superficially on aesthetics alone.

It was a little surprising to see the Bud Clark Commons, which was completed in 2011, named to this list in 2014. But eligibility for the honor stretches back 10 years, and besides: it was not at all surprising to see the AIA's Committe on the Environment found the project worthy of honor.

"We are extremely honored to be the recipients of what we consider one of the most challenging sustainable design awards programs in the nation," Holst partner Jeff Stuhr said by email. "For over 15 years, we have promoted and integrated green strategies into our work. For us, and perhaps most importantly, we believe that building timeless architecture - projects that will stand for a century or more – is the most sustainable thing a firm can do.”

Bud Clark Commons (photos by Sally Schoolmaster)

The LEED Platinum-rated project provides a walk-in day center for the homeless with with a 90-bed temporary shelter as well as 130 studio apartments for homeless men or women seeking permanent housing with support services. An estimated $60,000 per year is being saved on energy thanks to investments such as one of the region's largest solar hot water heating systems, a tight thermal envelope to reduce heating loads, and a heat recovery system for residential unit. All told, the building performs 51% better than code in terms of energy efficiency and 53% better in water efficiency.

Not only is the Bud Clark Commons impressively efficient, but it serves as a striking symbol of Portland's 10-year effort to end homelessness in the city. Situated on NW Broadway between Old Town and the Pearl District, it's part of a kind of gateway into downtown and its form exemplifies Holst's long track record of exceptionally attractive, refined architecture. Though simple in form, a pair of long, rectangular brick volumes, Holst gives the building kinetic energy and charm with color and natural wood details.

If there's any downside to the project, it'sperhaps not the  the design but its expense. The Bud Clark Commons cost $28.75 million (not including land) for its 106,000 square feet. In the future, if Portland is really going to forcefully address homelessness, we might need to  compliment such an impressive flagship as Bud Clark Commons with some pragmatic, high-bed-count solutions too. But the Wyatt had a very similar per-square-foot cost. To look at first costs alone is of course to paint an incomplete picture. These buildings will ultimately save millions through their efficiency.

Meanwhile, having multiple Portland projects on the prestigius AIA/COTE Top Ten for the second time in three years gives a whole lot of validation to the idea that our city's design community is leading the way nationally. For all the jokes about our "Portlandia" DNA of bearded hipsters engaged in artisanal crocheting or pickling, the truth is that our culture thrives on innovation, not just as a means to make money but to create a more lasting sense of place. Bud Clark Commons and the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building embody this tradition and move it forward.

 

Advertisements

Design calendar: April 16-30

A Victorian house in Southeast Portland (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Stefan Behnisch
The founding partner of Behnisch Architekten in Stuttgart, Germany, Stefan Behnisch is a world-renowned educator and proponent on the subject of sustainable building design. Behnisch’s goal—to connect the forces of human life and the natural environment—fuels his design work. Behnisch’s honors include a Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, the Award Trophée Sommet de la Terre et Bâtiment for Sustainable Architecture in France, and others. His firm’s commissions include the new administrative building for the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland; the Allston Science Complex at Harvard University; the Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore. Behnisch Architekten was recently selected to design the Portland State University School of Business Administration building, a 150,000-square-foot renovation and expansion, to be completed in 2017. Portland State University, Shattuck Hall (Room 212), SW Broadway and Hall Street. 7PM Wednesday, April 16. Free.

Sustainable Structures Symposium
Building envelopes, mechanical systems and daylighting are the traditional emphasis of green building practice and scholarship. The role of structural systems and materials in the overall performance of a building has been largely neglected. In contemporary practice, architects and engineers choose a structural system very early during the design process depending on constraints such as building codes, cost, required spans, construction schedule and site constraints. Very little consideration is typically given to other ways the structure could contribute to improving sustainable outcomes. This symposium will explore the greater role structure should have in the design, impact and operation of green buildings. Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union, 1825 SW Broadway, and AIA/Portland Center For Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 9AM Thursday, April 17. $250.

Lost Oregon
Inspired by San Francisco popular annual "Lost Landscapes" series, in which viewers and guest speakers try to identify long-gone local sights in old film reels, venerable Portland archivist Dennis Nyback will share a variety of vintage of vintage Oregon shorts, documentaries and amateur footage to trace the Portland landscape of yesteryear. Yours truly and writer/blogger Byron Beck will be onstage with Nyback to lead the participatory conversation. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Boulevard. 7:15PM Thursday, April 17. $8 ($6 for seniors, students and children under 12).

Net-Zero Energy Building Design
Achieving the goal of net-zero energy requires integrated design and careful attention to ongoing building operations and occupant energy use. Presented by the Energy Trust of Oregon, this half-day course features a panel of experts, including Mark Lyles of the New Buildings Institute with Marc Brune and Ruwan Jayaweera of PAE Consulting Engineers, who will review the design challenges net-zero presents and offer strategies and tools for meeting high performance standards while touching upon current trends in net-zero design, how these buildings can revolutionize a market and how current technology can help overcome. Ecotrust Building, 721 NW Ninth Ave. 8AM Friday, April 18. Sold out.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Evolution of the American House
Robert McCarter, an architecture professor at Washington University in St. Louis, will lead a discussion exploring Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses as the source for the ordering principles that would guide his entire career. McCarter will also discuss three other modern plan-making innovations: Frank Lloyd Wright's woven plan, Adolf Loos's raumplan, and Le Corbusier's plan libre, and their common source in counterpoint to Beaux-Arts plan-making. Smith CFI, 620 NE 19th Avenue. 6PM Friday, April 18. Free.

Portland SketchUp Meetup
Trimble SketchUp software (previously published by Google) is used by millions of people, making it the most popular 3D modeling software in the world. But in-person training and networking opportunities are limited. Portland's SketchUp Meetup seeks to create an educational and networking forum for local hobbyists and professionals who use the software as a tool to design 3D objects and environments. ADX, 417 SE 11th Avenue. 6:00PM Tuesday, April 22. Free.

Contingent Urbanism: When Tactics Become Strategy
B.D. Wortham-Galvin, an assistant professor at the Portland State University School of Architecture and a faculty fellow with the Center for Public Interest Design, will discuss how ordinary people are engaged in making place and how designers and planners might learn from it. Wortham-Galvin's talk builds on a July 2013 Architect magazine article exploring the concept of tactical urbanism, defined as "temporary, cheap, and usually grassroots interventions—including so-called guerrilla gardens, pop-up parks, food carts, and open streets projects—that are designed to improve city life on a block-by-block, street-by-street basis." University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch Street. 5:30PM Wednesday, April 23. Free.

Architects Without Borders—Africa Bridge
Barry Childs, founder of Africa Bridge (africabridge.org), will be the guest speaker at this month’s general meeting of Architects Without Borders-Oregon. Headquartered at Marylhurst University, Africa Bridge combats child poverty in Tanzania through economic development at the village level: creating farming coops, facilitating micro-lending, and building and renovating classrooms and clinics. Thus far Africa Bridge has been active in 20 villages. Childs, who grew up in Tanzania, is a 2010 winner of the $100,000 Purpose Prize awarded to innovative social entrepreneurs over the age of 60. Architects Without Borders-Oregon, AIA Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Ave. (Enter on NW Flanders.) 6PM, Wednesday, April 23. Free.

Build Local Alliance Spring Showcase
A Portland nonprofit working to connect local, responsibly grown and processed wood with local projects, the Build Local Alliance Spring Showcase includes guest speakers: Robert Deal, a forest researcher at the Pacific Northwest Research Center; Mark Lewis, President of Forest Grove supplier Woodfold; and Amy Jarvis of the Cascadia Green Building Council. Green Furniture Solutions, 625 SW 10th Avenue. 6:30PM Thursday, April 24. Suggested donation.

Victorian Glory: West Coast Residential Architecture, 1850-1910
Paul Duchscherer, author of Victorian Glory in San Francisco and the Bay Area, leads this discussion and survey of West Coast residential architecture, ranging from the mid-19th century Greek and Gothic revivals through high style Queen Anne and Eastlake movements and into the early 20th century and the Edwardian era. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, April 26. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

 

Advertisements

Requiem for PNCA's Goodman Building and a Pearl District tipping point

Goldman Building (image courtesy PNCA)

BRIAN LIBBY

When it was completed in 1998, the renovated Goodman Building didn't just provide an expanded home and presence for the Pacific Northwest College of Art. It also epitomized the Pearl District's DNA: creative conversions of warehouses. Holst Architecture's design provided a mix of art-exhibit space and classrooms surrounding a wide-open multistory central space that acted as a crossroads for teachers, students and visitors. Whether lectures, art shows or the occasional music performances, the Goodman felt like the creative heart of the Pearl even as the boxy old building with its concrete floors kept the neighborhood's past partially alive.

And that's to say nothing of the building's incredible exterior paint job, created by Randy Higgins (and which I wrote about in 2005 for Metropolis magazine), which translates a Rimbaud poem into an invented visual language of multi-colored squares and rectangles.

This week brought confirmation that the Goodman is slated for demolition. As reported by the Daily Journal of Commerce's Lee Fehrenbacher, Seattle-based developer Security Properties, which purchased the block last fall for $11.75 million, has submitted conceptual plans to the Bureau of Development Services for mixed-use development that would replace the Goodman with two buildings at 15 and 5 stories, totaling 220 units of housing above ground-floor retail. The $72 million project is to be designed by Seattle firm Mithun, which is known for its exemplary sustainable design credentials. "The net equity PNCA will realize from the $11.75 million sale," the school says on its website, "is part of the financing structure for the $32 million new campus construction project." 

There's no doubt that PNCA's move to the historic 511 Broadway building is an exciting game changer for the school, particularly that the renovation was designed by Portland's most acclaimed firm, Allied Works. The Brad Cloepfil-led design will both help make PNCA a more serious and ambitious art and design school as it coalesces around the North Park Blocks while allowing Allied something it has done far too little of over the past decade: design a major building in its home city. It's easy to see in renderings of the 511 some of the beauty and kinetics of Allied's signature Portland design, which was also a Pearl District renovation: the Wieden + Kennedy headquarters.

PNCA's plans for 511 Broadway (images courtesy Allied Works)

Even so, it's a shame that PNCA, which has grown substantially since branching out from its origins as the Portland Art Museum's in-house school, has had to stretch its resources to the degree where keeping a presence in the 511 and the Goodman is not possible.

Even if retaining the Goodman did not make financial or programmatic sense for PNCA, one could easily have imagined it taking on a role like that of warehouses and other historic buildings across the river converted into creative-industry office space, such as the Olympic Mills Commerce Center, the Leftbank Building, the Eastbank Commerce Center and the new Eastside Exchange. Or better yet, it would have been nice to see the Goodman become some kind of arts venue. How many performance spaces, for example, are there in the Pearl? Not far from here in Slabtown, the dance company Bodyvox turned an old building into a Boora-designed headquarters and performance venue. But there aren't a lot of other examples.

Instead of attracting a redevelopment-minded owner or developer, someone with more ambitious, tower-sized ambitions stepped in. And thus the Goodman had to go. It says something about how the real estate economy has emerged from its years of recession and started booming again. It also reminds us how popular the Portland area has become as a place of migration, and given how the Pearl is zoned to allow such highrises, it's perhaps not surprising that Seattle's Security Properties would swoop in. If they hadn't, some other developer probably would have. Yet unlike the example of projects like the Brewery Blocks, which retained portions of the site's former Weinhard beer brewery in building offices and condos, I'm guessing Security is not going to retain any semblance of the Goodman.

The Goldman wasn't an irreplaceable work of architecture per se. But the existing fabric of old buildings in Old Town/Chinatown and the Pearl, or what's left of them, together have a less easily quantifiable yet nevertheless substantial economic value of their own. They're what give these areas north of downtown and west of the Willamette their character, both aesthetically in their patina'd look and in their relatively small two to three-story scale. Thankfully there are individual success stories, like the one that seems to be happening with Centennial Mills; as The Oregonian's Elliot Njus reports, it may be on track for Jordan Schnitzer-led renovation.

Goldman Building (photo by Brian Libby)

"On the one hand I hate to see those neat old buildings disappear because they do bring a lot of character to the city," the DJC's Fehrenbacher told me by email. "But on the other hand, I feel like it’s a necessary evil if we want to prevent urban sprawl. I grew up in Sacramento, which outside of the downtown core is kind of like the land of never-ending suburbia. It’s disgusting. I wish that city would get on board with half the strategies Portland adopted long ago."

Indeed, the intent here is not to question density and the zoning that allows tall buildings in the Pearl. It's precisely what has made this area so vibrant, whether it's the collection of restaurants and shops or the blend of architecture and greenspace. At the same time, cities like San Francisco and New York have shown a potential downside to unbridled development in coveted neighborhoods. When real estate prices rise enough, there's an irresistible financial incentive to tear down buildings of even modest density in order to maximize the allowable density and achieve more profit. The architecture may be attractive or admirably sustainable, or both. The density may provide a positive contribution to the cultural vibrancy of the neighborhood. Yet if we lose the variation, in scale and in the mix of new and old structures, suddenly we risk becoming a forest of nearly identical tall buildings like we see pictures of in the latest pop-up metropolises of China.

Perhaps, in other words, life will go on if Portland loses the Goldman building after PNCA moves out in 2015. The school will be better off than ever and the new buildings will put more people in the neighborhood on the street, enabling a broader tax base and supporting local businesses. Yet if all the Goldman buildings go, we'll increase the likelihood that the priceless sense of place that defines us.

 

Advertisements

Parking, problems and possibilities in Old Town/Chinatown

Blagen Block, SW First (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

That line, delivered at the end of Roman Polanski's classic film, Chinatown, brings a simple message: however noble one's intent (in this case the protagonist played by Jack Nicholson), the calcified circumstances of place can't be easily reversed.

Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne weren't talking about Portland or its Chinatown. But that famous movie line occurred to me while reading Brad Schmidt's report in today's Oregonian about the latest effort to jump-start our Old Town/Chinatown district.

To jump-start this downtrodden district wedged between downtown and the Pearl, one of the city's most respected and venerable developers and civic leaders, John Russell, has proposed a new tax on surface parking lots. The tax would be not to raise revenue so much as to prompt change in Old Town/Chinatown and the broader Skidmore historic.

Surface parking lots are one of the neighborhood's biggest current problems and a sad part of its history.

In the mid-20th Century, many beautiful cast-iron-era buildings here and along the waterfront were torn down simply for parking lots. And all these decades later, many of them remain. They’re cash cows for landowners who needn’t bother with building buildings. Nevermind that the city is trying to foster high-density development, especially these sort of close-in, central-city districts. Nevermind they are soul-sucking forces in otherwise vibrant urban places (unless of course they're lined with food carts instead of cars, like on 10th Avenue downtown).

"Parking lots are the worst neighbor that you can have,” Russell told Schmidt. “I’ve joked that I’d rather have a brothel, because there’s at least something going on.”

Russell has been involved with numerous large-scale projects over more than 30 years. He developed the Pac West Center in 1984, for example, and in 2006 his 200 Market building renovation became the first office renovation in the United States to earn a LEED rating from the US Green Building Council. One of Russell's other projects, a renovation of Portland's oldest building, the Hallock-McMillan building on SW Naito Parkway at Oak Street, has languished in part because it's surrounded by surface parking lots. But he’s not making the parking lot proposal solely out of self-interest. Russell also has a long track record serving in a volunteer capacity for city bodies like the Historic Landmarks Commission, the Planning Commission, and as chair of the Portland Development Commission.

The real estate economy is ramping up both nationally and locally, with construction cranes and building sites scattered throughout the central city and beyond. Yet there has been relatively little development in Old Town/Chinatown. Though the district has taken positive steps over the years, such as attracting the University of Oregon's Portland satellite campus to the White Stag Block on NW Couch and Naito Parkway, and the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine across the street, this ideally situated neighborhood between downtown, the river, and the Pearl has not seen much private development.

White Stag Block, SW Naito (photo by Brian Libby)

Of course parking lots are not the only problem. It feels like a majority of the city's shelters and social service agencies are located here, as well as many of its dive bars. Old Town is an official Entertainment District, where late-night drinking leads to many a noise complaint and stained sidewalk. There has also been the presence of the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp, right along Burnside, which has given the homeless another option should they eschew shelters but has driven away neighborhood investment.

Are the surface parking lots sticking around because of the district’s social and economic problems, or are the social and economic problems persistent because it’s a neighborhood with lots of ugly surface lots? Neither Russell nor his detractors can answer that chicken-egg question definitively.

In Schmidt's story about the proposed parking-lot tax, Russell's foil is the Goodman family, which owns a majority of the land that holds parking lots downtown and in Old Town/Chinatown. "Frankly, for somebody who’s done close to nothing in 20 years to say it’s the problem, I find agitating," Schmidt quotes Greg Goodman saying of Russell.

Goodman's family has actually made progress in recent years finally starting to turn these central-city surface lots into building projects, most notably the 12 West building in the West End at 12th and Washington (designed by ZGF and developed in partnership with Gerding Edlen). But the defensiveness of Goodman's remark may stem from the fact that there's more than a kernel of truth to Russell's argument: that parking lots and good urban place-making don't go well together. If Portland really is going to avoid sprawling as much as other western American cities, the city has to grow up and in, by taking advantage of and transforming low-density areas such as polluted brownfields and surface parking lots. Of course people still need places to park their cars, but in the center of a major city, that should be underground or at least in a multi-story garage.

The crux of the Russell-Goodman argument in Schmidt's article is not just chicken-and-egg but carrot versus stick. Whereas Russell is arguing for the stick, via a tax on surface lots, Goodman unsurprisingly recommends the carrot. Rather than taxing parking lots, he told Schmidt, "the city should be subsidizing development in an area where projects currently don’t pencil out."

This may already be happening anyway. Old Town/Chinatown is already one of the Portland Development Commission's official Urban Renewal Areas, and as Schmidt reported in The Oregonian last month, Mayor Hales and PDC are looking to offer subsidies of $7 to $20 million over the next five years to build hundreds of new apartments that could be reserved for low and middle-wage earners. But the plan has also met with skepticism. Schmidt notes the city’s own statistics indicate a surplus of such workforce housing, as it's called, "and a deficit of options for the city’s poorest residents." Yet to build low-income housing in this neighborhood would increase the crowding of the lower classes into one place, which is just as bad for place-making as surface parking lots.

Make no mistake: it's more important to care properly for the poor and the homeless than it is to develop a popular neighborhood that makes the likes of John Russell, Greg Goodman or other developers an extra buck. Social problems aren’t something to be swept under the rug. But part of the way a city best handles its neediest populations is with a mix of income levels and zoning in each neighborhood. Old Town/Chinatown will only thrive when we build a vibrant, high-density, well-rounded there. Let the shelters and the bars stay, but make them part of a growing high-density neighborhood with increased housing and office space added to the mix, and renovations of its wonderful historic architectural fabric.

Even the right incentives and subsidies don't always work out, and city government must do its part by making the process seamless and without surprises. Take last year's collapsed effort to redevelop the Grove Hotel, a crumbling halfway house at Fourth and Burnside.

The Grove project was set to become an intriguing and potentially catalytic project for the neighborhood: an Asian-themed youth hostel co-developed by Wieden + Kennedy executive John C. Jay in tandem with the late Ace Hotel founder Alex Calderwood. Those are people who know a lot about attracting people and creating a sense of place. The deal, originally struck in 2010, was being heavily subsidized by PDC, but according to reporting by Willamette Week's Aaron Mesh (and others) it fell through after the commission asked for an additional $900,000 in collateral. By that time, the deal was already threatened because of the presence of the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp across the street. It’s an example of the continuing cycle of possibility and disappointment in Old Town/Chinatown.

Jay has long been active behind the scenes in the neighborhood, with projects such as the Ping restaurant, an ambitious pop-up gallery exhibition during the Portland Art Museum's "China Design Now" show, and an earlier effort to bring Asian grocer Uwajimaya to a surface parking lot at Fifth and Couch. When I interviewed him recently for a design-magazine article about his second-floor space in Chinatown, Studio J, for much of the conversation Jay would return to the wonder that so many of his visiting friends and colleagues express for Old Town/Chinatown. It could be millionaire Chinese investors, Paris fashion designers or Brooklyn graffiti artists but Jay says he hears about Old Town/Chinatown's beauty and potential more from people outside of Portland than people here do. "I don’t think locally we quite get it, the goldmine that’s sitting right here," Jay told me.

Every large city has a mix of neighborhoods: some rich and some poor, some trendy and others with boarded-up storefronts, some with beautiful historic buildings and others with banal strip malls. Yet the economic and social components of these neighborhoods are always changing. Look at how New York's SoHo went from Lou Reed to Luis Vuitton. It's not to say that Old Town/Chinatown needs to gentrify with condo towers and espresso bars. In many urban neighborhoods, development itself becomes the problem, pressuring owners to demolish lower-density buildings and driving up the cost of living. Yet the neighborhood needn't be caught on the other end of the spectrum either.

The Portland Business Alliance has joined Goodman in opposing the parking lot tax. Its leadership argued that taxing parking-lot owners wouldn't do anything to make developing the lots financially viable when the rents they could charge potential building tenants would not cover the cost of construction. And indeed, that's why city leaders have offered incentives, be it for the Grove Hotel project, the new workforce-housing proposal, or others. Leaders in the public and private sector know that the right project, if it attracts enough people, can be successful not only for its investors or occupants but in changing an entire neighborhood, which benefits when property values increase and new businesses cluster around the success story that got there first. The Grove might have been that project, or it might be something else. But the larger point is that Old Town/Chinatown is still searching for that catalyst.

Perhaps it's not fair, then, to single out the surface parking lots for a tax, because it places unfair expectations on their owners to build multi-million-dollar buildings at a loss. But Russell reminds us that sometimes it’s not enough to wait for perceptions or property values to slowly change over time, because sometimes that process can become bogged down for decades, as it has done in Old Town/Chinatown.

The good news is that this neighborhood, for all its persistent problems, has something great to offer, not only in its ideal location but the wonderful collection of old buildings there. The bad news in this neighborhood is that for every step forward there seems to be a step back, or a lack of steps at all, and there’s enough blame to pass around to private and public sector alike, as well as our collective citywide perceptions about Old Town/Chinatown.

In the movie Chinatown, which takes place in the mid-1930s, the Los Angeles district of the same name was known for its signs of corruption. Not long after the time in which the film takes place, the neighborhood was razed to make room for LA's Union Station. With Portland's Chinatown and Old Town, we need a more nuanced approach, one that favors density over parking lots, but with a balance of economic progress and social equity, and of the carrot and the stick. Whether one agrees with Russell's tax plan or not, we're better off at least having the conversation.

 

Advertisements