MarkDaMan
Dec 13, 2006, 5:52 PM
South Waterfront's community also under construction
Connections - Shared spaces and developer-sponsored social activities help high-rise residents form meaningful bonds
Sunday, December 10, 2006
ERIN HOOVER BARNETT
The Oregonian
Rollie and Annie White reserved a condo in the South Waterfront's Meriwether before the building was even a hole in the ground.
At the time, it didn't occur to them that they might want to live in it. They have two young children and loved their Laurelhurst neighborhood. The condo was just an investment.
But the couple kept visiting, curious to see the slender glass and steel towers rise from the once-polluted riverbank. Soon they learned more.
The developers are creating what Gerding Edlen eco-guru Dennis Wilde called "the software of community building." Architects are designing buildings with lounges and outdoor gathering spaces. And developers are financing such elements for residents as a visioning process, a history project and social events -- from naturalist-guided kayak outings to wine and cheese parties -- all coordinated by community relations director Sharon Kitzhaber, former wife of the former governor.
This freshman-dorm-meets-"The Love Boat" approach is inspired by several projects in British Columbia. It's a marketing juggernaut intended to persuade prospective buyers to pay a half-million and more for a chance to live amid what will be a relatively isolated construction zone for years.
It's also tapping a nerve in a city known for community building yet grappling with how that translates to a high-rise neighborhood where the tendency could easily be to hole up with your five-star view of the mountains.
"People are feeling more and more isolated," said Jeremy Stoddart, a 29-year-old mortgage broker and Meriwether penthouse owner sipping hot chocolate at a weekly gathering in the lounge. "It provides an atmosphere that people are craving."
In other neighborhoods, community building is done by tireless block moms, grass-roots nonprofits and neighborhood associations on little or no budgets, mostly with volunteers.
The South Waterfront model is about what money and ingenuity can buy when one development team gets to create a brand new, 38-acre high-density neighborhood. Think Hillsboro's Orenco Station, only vertical, close-in and on a river.
The $2 billion district is a partnership among developers Williams & Dame and Gerding Edlen, their builder, architects and Realtor; Oregon Health & Science University; and, because the district is an urban-renewal area, the city.
"Portland is a city that is made up of great neighborhoods, and what makes a great neighborhood is a sense of place," said Todd Prendergast, principal director with Realty Trust in South Waterfront. "So we knew that unless we could create something more than just a series of buildings and actually create a great sense of place, it would take longer for South Waterfront to become a great neighborhood." Activities hasten bonding
So can you choreograph community?
The Whites were willing to find out. They rented their Laurelhurst home and moved with their two daughters to a 1,525-square-foot two-bedroom condo. They still feel strong ties to Laurelhurst, where their girls, ages 6 and 9, attend school. Yet the couple say forming meaningful connections with neighbors happens more quickly at the Meriwether, jump-started by planned activities, their proximity to one another and the common bond of experiencing this new neighborhood.
Rollie White, a 41-year-old federal biologist, says plenty of neighborhood events went on in Laurelhurst, "but nothing on this scale. It's overwhelming."
Annie White, 40, a human resources professional turned stay-at-home mom, says it's like going off to college only with "much nicer rooms and better alcohol."
The South Waterfront approach is different from how condo living has evolved in Portland's Pearl district. In the Pearl, there were already shops and cafes and downtown within walking distance, so less need for in-building hangout space. More recent Pearl condos -- the Streetcar Lofts, the Edge, the Elizabeth -- have patios with barbecue grills or party rooms with kitchens. And parks and plazas invite neighbors and the public to linger. But the Pearl condos don't have a social director.
Says veteran Pearl Realtor Mary Ann McDowell, there's no "aerobics at 7 on the north patio."
But the South Waterfront's Kitzhaber says she's no cruise director. She simply provides a spark that residents can choose to turn into a flame. And the residents attracted to the district early on have been the motivated types.
Before even moving in, Tom Noguchi, a Bonneville Power engineer from Lake Oswego, joined the South Waterfront's public advisory group to the city planning bureau and began attending meetings of the South Portland Neighborhood Association.
"I just wanted to make those individual connections and understand the bigger picture." said Noguchi, 64.
It didn't take the development team long to cue in to these self-starters. "Urban pioneers," they named the new residents and handed out buttons at one of many pre-move-in gatherings.
Now that 241 out of 245 Meriwether units are occupied, and move-in for the John Ross starts early next year, communal energy has been unleashed.
Joana Freedman and Carol Cook pore over the newspapers at a table in the Meriwether lounge on a Saturday morning, their 15-year-old Italian greyhound, Gabby, at their feet.
Freedman, 47, a physical therapist, and Cook, 52, in upper management with an assisted living developer, bought a Meriwether town home, downsizing from their Northeast Portland house. They like staring out their floor-to-ceiling windows at the ospreys and the Christmas ships. But they also visit the lounge, where an upmarket coffee maker is an excuse to come, and a chat with other residents is a reason to stay.
"I haven't made a pot of coffee since we moved," Freedman said, adding that it's been easy to interact here. "We really didn't know what to expect, and we've been pleasantly surprised."
Joan Kwok, 53, pops into the lounge and asks the couple to sign a petition. She's on the district's nature and green spaces committee, one of several committees initiated by the developers to get residents vested in their new neighborhood. The committee is petitioning the developers to expand the river trail sooner rather than later.
Within a half-hour, the lounge hums with residents in sweats and weekend wear, munching pastries, sipping coffee, chatting -- and signing Kwok's petition.
Earlier that week, a dozen residents gathered in the lounge with Chet Orloff, former director of the Oregon Historical Society, to sip wine and talk about the South Waterfront history project.
Orloff, now with Portland State University, approached the developers about telling the area's story from its bygone days on the river trading route, enlisting residents in chronicling the new chapters. He hopes lasting public exhibits will result. The developers, he said, are paying him what amounts to less than $25,000 a year, which he called modest.
"I thought the best way to create a community would be to begin to develop a sense of . . . where they are and what the history of the place has been," Orloff said, "placing them in the larger context of the city." Dinner with neighbors
At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Rollie and Annie White and their daughters march out the door of their condo, Annie carrying a salad bowl, Jenny in a red skirt and fancy black purse, Julia in velour sweats and slippers. They walk down the hall to their neighbor's.
"Hey! Come on in!" said Jessica Black, 24, throwing open the door.
Annie hands Black the salad bowl as they enter the simply furnished one-bedroom unit that Black and roommate Diana Stephens, 28, rent. Jean Rodway, 76, who lives between -- as they like to joke -- Black and the Whites, stands near the kitchen island, the faint smell of lasagna in the air.
Julia runs to the window, a favorite pastime among residents, all curious about what others can see from their condos. This one looks up into the twinkling lights of the Southwest hills.
Black, a newly minted architect involved in the South Waterfront project, was excited to have a chance to rent in the Meriwether.
"There's sort of a spirit of adventure," she said. "It's like we're part of something greater. It's not about what we have individually, it's about what we're sharing."
But rather than it being an exclusive experience, she's eager for the parks, greenway trail, restaurants and OHSU to draw others to the waterfront.
Standing in her low-rise jeans and T-shirt at the head of her Dania-style dining room table as this multigenerational group took its place, Black clasped her hands.
"This is so great," she said. "I never had so many people eat around this table."
Erin Hoover Barnett: 503-294-5011; ehbarnett@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/metro/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1165649280121890.xml&coll=7
Connections - Shared spaces and developer-sponsored social activities help high-rise residents form meaningful bonds
Sunday, December 10, 2006
ERIN HOOVER BARNETT
The Oregonian
Rollie and Annie White reserved a condo in the South Waterfront's Meriwether before the building was even a hole in the ground.
At the time, it didn't occur to them that they might want to live in it. They have two young children and loved their Laurelhurst neighborhood. The condo was just an investment.
But the couple kept visiting, curious to see the slender glass and steel towers rise from the once-polluted riverbank. Soon they learned more.
The developers are creating what Gerding Edlen eco-guru Dennis Wilde called "the software of community building." Architects are designing buildings with lounges and outdoor gathering spaces. And developers are financing such elements for residents as a visioning process, a history project and social events -- from naturalist-guided kayak outings to wine and cheese parties -- all coordinated by community relations director Sharon Kitzhaber, former wife of the former governor.
This freshman-dorm-meets-"The Love Boat" approach is inspired by several projects in British Columbia. It's a marketing juggernaut intended to persuade prospective buyers to pay a half-million and more for a chance to live amid what will be a relatively isolated construction zone for years.
It's also tapping a nerve in a city known for community building yet grappling with how that translates to a high-rise neighborhood where the tendency could easily be to hole up with your five-star view of the mountains.
"People are feeling more and more isolated," said Jeremy Stoddart, a 29-year-old mortgage broker and Meriwether penthouse owner sipping hot chocolate at a weekly gathering in the lounge. "It provides an atmosphere that people are craving."
In other neighborhoods, community building is done by tireless block moms, grass-roots nonprofits and neighborhood associations on little or no budgets, mostly with volunteers.
The South Waterfront model is about what money and ingenuity can buy when one development team gets to create a brand new, 38-acre high-density neighborhood. Think Hillsboro's Orenco Station, only vertical, close-in and on a river.
The $2 billion district is a partnership among developers Williams & Dame and Gerding Edlen, their builder, architects and Realtor; Oregon Health & Science University; and, because the district is an urban-renewal area, the city.
"Portland is a city that is made up of great neighborhoods, and what makes a great neighborhood is a sense of place," said Todd Prendergast, principal director with Realty Trust in South Waterfront. "So we knew that unless we could create something more than just a series of buildings and actually create a great sense of place, it would take longer for South Waterfront to become a great neighborhood." Activities hasten bonding
So can you choreograph community?
The Whites were willing to find out. They rented their Laurelhurst home and moved with their two daughters to a 1,525-square-foot two-bedroom condo. They still feel strong ties to Laurelhurst, where their girls, ages 6 and 9, attend school. Yet the couple say forming meaningful connections with neighbors happens more quickly at the Meriwether, jump-started by planned activities, their proximity to one another and the common bond of experiencing this new neighborhood.
Rollie White, a 41-year-old federal biologist, says plenty of neighborhood events went on in Laurelhurst, "but nothing on this scale. It's overwhelming."
Annie White, 40, a human resources professional turned stay-at-home mom, says it's like going off to college only with "much nicer rooms and better alcohol."
The South Waterfront approach is different from how condo living has evolved in Portland's Pearl district. In the Pearl, there were already shops and cafes and downtown within walking distance, so less need for in-building hangout space. More recent Pearl condos -- the Streetcar Lofts, the Edge, the Elizabeth -- have patios with barbecue grills or party rooms with kitchens. And parks and plazas invite neighbors and the public to linger. But the Pearl condos don't have a social director.
Says veteran Pearl Realtor Mary Ann McDowell, there's no "aerobics at 7 on the north patio."
But the South Waterfront's Kitzhaber says she's no cruise director. She simply provides a spark that residents can choose to turn into a flame. And the residents attracted to the district early on have been the motivated types.
Before even moving in, Tom Noguchi, a Bonneville Power engineer from Lake Oswego, joined the South Waterfront's public advisory group to the city planning bureau and began attending meetings of the South Portland Neighborhood Association.
"I just wanted to make those individual connections and understand the bigger picture." said Noguchi, 64.
It didn't take the development team long to cue in to these self-starters. "Urban pioneers," they named the new residents and handed out buttons at one of many pre-move-in gatherings.
Now that 241 out of 245 Meriwether units are occupied, and move-in for the John Ross starts early next year, communal energy has been unleashed.
Joana Freedman and Carol Cook pore over the newspapers at a table in the Meriwether lounge on a Saturday morning, their 15-year-old Italian greyhound, Gabby, at their feet.
Freedman, 47, a physical therapist, and Cook, 52, in upper management with an assisted living developer, bought a Meriwether town home, downsizing from their Northeast Portland house. They like staring out their floor-to-ceiling windows at the ospreys and the Christmas ships. But they also visit the lounge, where an upmarket coffee maker is an excuse to come, and a chat with other residents is a reason to stay.
"I haven't made a pot of coffee since we moved," Freedman said, adding that it's been easy to interact here. "We really didn't know what to expect, and we've been pleasantly surprised."
Joan Kwok, 53, pops into the lounge and asks the couple to sign a petition. She's on the district's nature and green spaces committee, one of several committees initiated by the developers to get residents vested in their new neighborhood. The committee is petitioning the developers to expand the river trail sooner rather than later.
Within a half-hour, the lounge hums with residents in sweats and weekend wear, munching pastries, sipping coffee, chatting -- and signing Kwok's petition.
Earlier that week, a dozen residents gathered in the lounge with Chet Orloff, former director of the Oregon Historical Society, to sip wine and talk about the South Waterfront history project.
Orloff, now with Portland State University, approached the developers about telling the area's story from its bygone days on the river trading route, enlisting residents in chronicling the new chapters. He hopes lasting public exhibits will result. The developers, he said, are paying him what amounts to less than $25,000 a year, which he called modest.
"I thought the best way to create a community would be to begin to develop a sense of . . . where they are and what the history of the place has been," Orloff said, "placing them in the larger context of the city." Dinner with neighbors
At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Rollie and Annie White and their daughters march out the door of their condo, Annie carrying a salad bowl, Jenny in a red skirt and fancy black purse, Julia in velour sweats and slippers. They walk down the hall to their neighbor's.
"Hey! Come on in!" said Jessica Black, 24, throwing open the door.
Annie hands Black the salad bowl as they enter the simply furnished one-bedroom unit that Black and roommate Diana Stephens, 28, rent. Jean Rodway, 76, who lives between -- as they like to joke -- Black and the Whites, stands near the kitchen island, the faint smell of lasagna in the air.
Julia runs to the window, a favorite pastime among residents, all curious about what others can see from their condos. This one looks up into the twinkling lights of the Southwest hills.
Black, a newly minted architect involved in the South Waterfront project, was excited to have a chance to rent in the Meriwether.
"There's sort of a spirit of adventure," she said. "It's like we're part of something greater. It's not about what we have individually, it's about what we're sharing."
But rather than it being an exclusive experience, she's eager for the parks, greenway trail, restaurants and OHSU to draw others to the waterfront.
Standing in her low-rise jeans and T-shirt at the head of her Dania-style dining room table as this multigenerational group took its place, Black clasped her hands.
"This is so great," she said. "I never had so many people eat around this table."
Erin Hoover Barnett: 503-294-5011; ehbarnett@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/metro/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1165649280121890.xml&coll=7