Zidell's last barge and Portland's transforming waterfront

Gantry crane at Zidell Marine Corporation (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last week I happened to be meeting a friend for coffee in South Waterfront, at a bakery directly across the street from the Zidell Marine Corporation's barge-building facility.

As I approached the bakery by bike, coasting those last few yards, I took a moment to marvel at one of my favorite urban settings in Portland: the mix of heavy industry and 21st century urban development that has for the past several years come from the Zidell facility sitting right next door to the Portland Aerial Tram on the OHSU Center for Health and Healing. It always felt like a prime example of two different eras in one small place.

The next day, though, brought news that Zidell is building its last barge, which will be completed next spring. The company will continue to lease barges, but it won't make them anymore.

Every city's history is a fluid and continuing one, though, which means that one always knew the barge-building facility was going to go away at some point. But the company's president, Jay Zidell, had as recently as 2013 indicated that it would remain for many years. But over the past year, as it became less clear that Zidell could count on a succession of future barge orders, the company decided to accelerate the transition of its property from shipping to urban development.

Last year South Waterfront seemed to really come of age. In the years prior, the Great Recession had taken its toll and many of its signature condo towers were largely empty, leading to empty streets unless you were standing in front of OHSU and the tram. But after the opening of the Tilikum Crossing bridge, by which time the real estate economy had rebounded, the district seemed full of life and began to really grow again. Unless the national economy tanks, I think that growth will only continue, especially given how well connected South Waterfront now is with not only the bridge but both MAX and streetcar lines. It no longer feels like the geographically isolated place it is, pinned by I-5 and the river. But it turned out that Tilikum Crossing and the Zidell barge-building facility will have only had a little over a year together with both in operation. If you attended the Feast food festival earlier this month at the vacant Zidell Yards property next to the barge facility, or the Northwest Film Center's drive-in event there last weekend, it may be one of the last times, for over the next few years this 33-acre property, including the barge operation, will be filled with offices and condos.

Zidell shipyards, 1960s (Zidell Marine Corporation)

There was a time when the South Waterfront was practically nothing but barges and shipyards. Last year when I wrote a CityLab article about the Tilikum Crossing, I came across a 1964 photo of this area just north of the Ross Island Bridge. The Marquam Bridge is under construction in the background of this photo, and in the foreground are shipyards where hundreds of Liberty and Victory ships, many of them built in the Kaiser shipyards just a few miles north during World War II, being broken down for recycling.

It's not to say that South Waterfront can't or won't be a thriving urban district with the Zidell barges no longer being built there. Quite the contrary. As the Zidell property fills up, with more OHSU buildings as well as other offices and condos, we'll finally have a continuous strip of walkable cityscape and riverfront from downtown all the way down to the edge of South Waterfront. Like the bridge, that will only enhance South Waterfront's connections to the rest of the city center.

Even so, Zidell's barge construction gave South Waterfront something valuable that it will now lack: the presence of something old and historic there. I think this is not merely a sentimental idea but something crucial to the neighborhoods where we most often want to spend time. Walk around South Waterfront today and it feels in many ways like a nicely walkable high-density environment, with restaurants and shops as well as greenspace, and plenty of people to add a sense of energy. But it also feels a little bit alien, because there are only new buildings. The same sensation exists in the northern Pearl District, where there aren't any old warehouses but just new condos and apartments. The one anchor of oldness that the area had, Centennial Mills, is being destroyed by the city and the Portland Development Commission.

Renderings of future Zidell Yards development (top: ZGF, bottom: Lever Architecture)

If there's nothing we can do about the Zidell barges going away, one at least hopes that some of that industrial shell will remain. I've heard some talk that the gold-hued gantry crane at the west edge of the facility (closest to Moody Avenue) could be retained, for example. (It's already the site of a popular food cart pod of the same name.) Of course in an industrial facility it was a purely functional device, but the crane — which used to move on a track to help turn barges or put major structural components in place but has been inactive for the past five years as techniques have changed — bears a small resemblance to various arched monuments and gates found in cultures around the world, from famous examples like Paris's Arc de Triumph to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis but actually dating back to ancient Rome at least. The Arch of Constantine in Rome dates to 312 AD. If you add gates, which are common in Asian countries like Japan and India, they may go back even further.

Some of the Zidell master planning has indicated a desire for new structures to take inspiration from the industrial buildings on the site. But using weathered steel on a new office building isn't quite the same as having a massive barge being welded and hammered together on the site. Inevitably, something will be lost when the last barge is built and there is no longer such a visible contrast in types of activities. We ought to, and need to, retain some sense of the history that played out on this west side of the Willamette over the past century. The best cities or urban places are usually ones where the contributions of different eras can be visible in built form, as part of a continuous historical narrative. The barge building can't stay but a historical plaque just won't be enough.

The end of barge-building on the Zidell property is of course just part of a larger story. Portland, like all major American cities with working waterfronts touching their central cities, may never completely be without heavy industry's presence, nor should it. According to Colliers International report, the metro area's industrial vacancy rate fell to just over four percent in the second quarter, and four million square feet of industrial development is in the pipeline. But that industry is moving away from city centers to points further afield with easier transportation logistics and not such a high real estate value. We have to move on, but that makes it all the more important that we tell the story of that process.

 

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Comments

[Udai Hoshi]

Hi Brian, a great article as always. I have been reading your blog for a while. It is interesting to see the mix of the two world in south water front. Thanks, keep telling us a good story.

[Brian Libby]

Thank you very much!

[Matthew Ginn]

The final launch will be a bittersweet moment, for sure. But, as you say, it was inevitable. I had the opportunity to photograph one of their launches in 2010: http://matthewginn.com/lettershome/?p=917. It was well attended, but the next one will be a big affair.

[Brian Libby]

Nice photos, Matthew!

[Melissa W.]

Thanks for the update Brian. I hope they do keep the gantry crane, what a grand entrance that would make to a building! Please keep urging the powers-that-be to keep some of the Old Portland with the new. Our past is being obliterated by multi-use buildings and developers with no desire to remember what made Portland great in the first place.