South Waterfront News

[MarkDaMan]

South Waterfront is ready for its close-up
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Fred Leeson
The Oregonian

A neighborhood unlike any other in Portland will finally start to blossom this year after years of planning and talk.

People will begin moving into slender condo towers with stunning views of downtown, Mount Hood and Ross Island. Patients and doctors will meet in a new medical building. Airborne visitors will be whisked silently to and from the neighborhood in silvery capsules suspended from a cable running to Oregon Health & Science University. The Portland Streetcar will provide a vital artery to downtown.

Although completion will take a few more years, the South Waterfront Central District (the official name) will show its face, springing to life from barren former industrial land south of the Ross Island Bridge.

It's the real test for many top architects and planners who worked on it. "Here, it's all being designed simultaneously," says Michael McCulloch, chairman of the Portland Design Commission, which reviews each new building proposal.

Even in the fast-growing Pearl District, architects have had a decade to learn from successes and mistakes. Not so on the South Waterfront.

"These developments are happening in quick succession," McCulloch says. "They are in sympathy with each other, but they are not evolutionary in terms of learning from each other."

The design commission has tried to make sure new buildings fit with their neighbors and create a pleasing pedestrian environment for residents and visitors. Many buildings will offer retail spaces at street level for neighborhood-oriented restaurants and businesses.

Further, a Portland Office of Transportation plan offers a unified approach to street furniture such as benches, street signs, utility poles and newsracks intended to lend a tasteful uniformity to the new district. Will it all work?

The answer will lie in the eye of each beholder. "It has been a challenge to imagine something as good as it possibly can be," McCulloch says.

Key elements to watch for this year:

Opening of the first condo towers, a 21- and 24-story duo called The Meriwether.

Topping out of The John Ross, a 31-story elliptical condo tower that will be the first to hit a 325-foot maximum height allowed in the district.

Completion of Building One, the start of a new Oregon Health & Science University complex that represents the university's first major expansion off Marquam Hill.

Start of service by the Portland Aerial Tram, that will carry passengers between the main OHSU campus and the central district in less than three minutes.

Extension of the Portland Streetcar along Southwest Moody Avenue from RiverPlace to Southwest Gibbs Street.

Clearing and planting of interim turf for a two-block neighborhood park bounded by Southwest Moody and Bond avenues between Curry and Gaines streets. Planning will come later for a permanent park design. "We don't want to start planning before residents move in," says Larry Brown, a Portland Development Commission senior development manager. "People who live there deserve to have a say in their park's design."

Fred Leeson: 503-294-5946; fredleeson@news.oregonian.com

[pdxstreetcar]

"These developments are happening in quick succession," McCulloch says. "They are in sympathy with each other, but they are not evolutionary in terms of learning from each other."
this is an interesting statement, i think he's right. this is also something that the pearl has been very good at

[MarkDaMan]

BooHoo...I've highlighted some of the better "stop SoWa and protect our views" quotes!

The price of a high-rise city
http://www.portlandtribune.com/newsi/60117L.LeadArt.jpg
As South Waterfront towers rise, nearby residents lose cherished view
By JOSEPH GALLIVAN Issue date: Tue, Jan 17, 2006
The Tribune Few things are as sacred to Portlanders as their view of Mount Hood.
It tells the time on a seasonal scale: If it’s brown it must be late summer. It tells the weather: Fifty miles of clarity is a dramatic break in the rain. It drives home sales and leisure plans, provides bragging rights and an object of contemplation.
So as city planners, developers and home buyers embrace the idea of building up rather than out, someone’s going to lose out.
The residents of one of Portland’s oldest neighborhoods, Lair Hill, have been able to count their losses on a daily basis lately. First the brown skeletons of the three new towers at the South Waterfront District went up. (Oregon Health & Science University’s Center for Health and Healing, formerly known as Building One, and the Meriwether Condominium Towers.)
In the last month, glass has sheathed the buildings almost as rapidly as in a time-lapse movie, blocking the remaining glimpses of the snowcapped mountain for certain residents.
“I hate it,” says Emily Scranton, 20, of the 16-story Center for Health and Healing, which rose slap-bang between her bedroom and Mount Hood. Recalling last summer, she says: “I went on vacation, and the tower was real low. I came back, and the mountain was covered.”
Scranton moved here from the flatlands of Indiana to study massage, and rents the top-floor apartment in a triplex at Southwest Corbett Avenue and Gibbs Street.
“You could see Mount Hood from the shower and from the porch,” she says. “I used to sit up on the roof for hours talking with my friend Heather. We had 360-degree views. We’d see the mountain glowing.”
She gives practice massages on her porch: “People loved it. It was very peaceful.”
Scranton’s landlady, Kathleen Root, lives on the first floor of the 1893 Victorian. She’s still upset about the new towers.
“I had a peekaboo view of Mount Hood if I stood at certain place on tippy-toe,” she says. “That was a whole lot better than that massive building. What I’m really losing is the open sky. That bugs the heck out of me.”
She went to the public meetings about the tram, which will run above Gibbs Street from OHSU’s new tower, but didn’t feel she was heard. (She predicts the tram will be “a scar on the hill.”) She stopped going and missed the discussion of the view.
Justin Auld owns an 1880 house at 3325 S.W. Kelly Ave. that lost its view to the apartment building opposite in the 1960s. “On a clear day I can see the tip,” says the Vermont native, 33, who moved here six years ago. “I always look at it for a few seconds at the corner of Whitaker and Kelly.”
As a teacher at the Art Institute of Portland, he has an aesthetic appreciation of the form, and has driven up to Council Crest to draw it. He’s also a hiker and has been on the mountain many times.
“It’s always been cool to watch it in the rain and see the snow cover it, then get patchy in the summer. It’s kind of like insurance, telling us how much water we’re going to get.”

View comes to some

Dennis Wilde is one of those people who will gain a view of Mount Hood: In April he and his wife move into a brand-new 2,000-square-foot condo in the east tower of the Meriwether condos.
The empty nesters downsized and moved out of their Terwilliger home last year and into an apartment in the Pearl District, to get used to the urban lifestyle. The roads through the South Waterfront District are as muddy as Stumptown in its founding days, but by April he is confident there will be asphalt and coffee shops.
Wilde is putting his money where his mouth is: He’s the project manager for Gerding/Edlen Development Co., which is jointly developing South Waterfront with Williams & Dame.
Standing on the bare concrete 24 stories up in the west tower, hard hat on, he points through the driving rain at various future points of interest: the streetcar turnaround, the bioswales and the two-block area that will eventually become Central Park.
“These buildings have been designed with views in mind,” he explains. The towers are narrow and are aligned to maximize the view eastward. “I’ll have a pretty nice view of the Willamette looking south,” he adds.
Troy Doss is a senior planner at the city Bureau of Planning and a project manager for the South Waterfront. (His department comes up with the rules about height, design, architecture and types of land use that the developers have to follow.)
“The street plan was laid out in part to provide extra sight corridors, with 200-by-200-foot square blocks, like the downtown grid pattern,” he says.
Doss says the bureau also considered the view from the east, from the Brooklyn neighborhood to the West Hills. There are limits, though.
“The building heights were capped to protect views of Mount Hood from Terwilliger Parkway,” which was built as a greenway with scenic viewpoints for drivers, bikers and pedestrians, he says.
“Obviously the people farther down the hill were more affected because of the elevation. We can protect public views, but it’s almost impossible to protect private views. It’s a matter of virtual impossibility to do development in that district without affecting someone.”

Planning makes a difference

Doss says that with the buildings going up according to a grand plan, rather than willy-nilly as usually happens, it’s easier to insist on things like views and create a “dynamic district with a light and airy pedestrian environment.”
The Meriwether’s two towers will have 243 condos. Mount Hood views start around the 10th floor, where you can see over the trees on Ross Island. Around half of the owners will have be able to see the mountain — which is a lot more than the number of views the towers will obliterate.
Looking back at the West Hills, the Corbett-Terwilliger and Lair Hill neighborhoods seem small and sparsely populated.
And with the standard line about the $2 billion redevelopment of the South Waterfront, the 3,000 new residences and potential 10,000 new jobs, the concerns of residents of these few homes have little hope of making a difference. (They’ve been tossed a few bones: a pedestrian bridge across the freeway, sunken power lines and a new Ross Island Bridge onramp.)
Mary Guenther and Jim Wallace have lived at the corner of Southwest Corbett Avenue and Curry Street for 25 years. It’s that busy spot where traffic turns to get onto Hood Avenue and then Interstate 5. Every time they step out of their side entrance they glance eastward, where the Meriwether towers now loom large.
“The river’s what I’m going to miss,” Wallace says. “I’ve been looking at Mount Hood for 25 years. Now someone else gets to look at it.”

[urbanlife]

boo-ho, want to see the mountain, buy a home in the country.

[IFtowner]

You've got to be kidding me. It's a big city, people are going to have to accept that SOMEDAY.

[PacificNW]

I find it interesting that the new residents of the condo's can see Mt. Hood if they have a condo on the 10th (or higher) floor. You lose some and you gain some.....this is a growing city for freakin' sake.

[bvpcvm]

“I had a peekaboo view of Mount Hood if I stood at certain place on tippy-toe,” she says. “That was a whole lot better than that massive building. What I’m really losing is the open sky. That bugs the heck out of me.”

Let's see, if she stood on her tip toes, she could see the mountain, but now b/c of that tower she's *losing open sky*? Give me a break. Whine, whine, whine.

[urbanlife]

she makes it sound like the towers are rising right next door to her. I am pretty sure she is not losing that much.

[MarkDaMan]

I am pretty sure she is not losing that much.

I'd rather have a full time futuristic skyline view than a once in a blue moon stand on tip toes to see the tip of Mt. Hood. The lady is a nut...and for the other people, they are renters for God's sake!

[urbanlife]

those damn dirty renters!! :yuck: (j/k, renters are what makes the world go round)

besides, they are probably going to get kicked out once the developer decides to turn them into condos.

[seattle1]

Oh please, people are whining over losing a view of Mount Hood? It could be worse, they could have lost their home in a flood or something like people in New Orleans.

They should feel lucky for what they have...

[Last Chance]

I don't know anything about that neighborhood. In the small picture, it looked like the neighborhood had a territorial view as well as a view of Mt. Hood? It will still have a territorial view. What kind of premium do people pay in Portland for a view of Mt. Hood?

If you're going to get upset about this, at least make it be about money. Getting upset about losing a peek-a-boo view is just plain ridiculous.

I think that their property values have already grown more from Portland's development, than they have lost due to the changed view. Not everyone thinks like that though...

[dkealoha]

I just watched the 10:00 KGW news and they said the estimated cost is now at $55 million. If the city approves the new budget fast enough they expect to have it running by December.

[MarkDaMan]

Instant community -- just add people
Thursday, April 20, 2006
By Erin Hoover Barnett
The Oregonian

Driving into South Waterfront along Southwest Moody is a 15-mile-per-hour crawl. The dirt-caked road is uneven in spots and, at one point, narrows to one lane. Men in hard hats take a Mountain Dew break on a newly poured curb. Rumbling equipment digs and smoothes. And jutting up from the mud are glass and steel monuments to the city's condo craze and the muscle of Oregon Health & Science University in various stages of completion.

Not exactly homey.

Yet, during the next week, into this work in progress will step the first residents, bound for the Meriwether towers. It would appear that a clash of interests looms over South Waterfront like the cranes. After all, high-end homeowners are not known for suppressing their discontent.

Ah, but this is where the true nature of the budding neighborhood reveals itself. The 38-acre River Blocks development is not just a collection of buildings in the making. It is a Lifestyle, created by the developers and their Realtor with wraparound marketing and buckets of savvy. It shows just how motivating a planned $1.5 billion investment can be.

Indeed, developers Gerding/Edlen, Williams & Dame and Realty Trust have put considerable thought into creating community amid a construction zone. Because that is what the waterfront will be for years to come. The homeowners' experience, says Realty Trust's Todd Prendergast, "has been a topic of discussion from the infancy of this project."

So instead of new housing development, think urban resort.

Observe, if you will, the Discovery Center. As the River Blocks' sales floor, it has the obligatory kitchen models and the 3-D rendering of the development. But this subtle, new building with "VENTURE" etched in 10-foot letters into its synthetic stucco facade is also the community center. Not the scuffed-wood-floors and the thud-of-basketballs-in-the-gym variety. We're talking Metropolitan Home-esque lounging areas complete with pomegranates-on-a-pedestal knick knacks. And an outdoor fireplace with weathered-wood patio furniture gathered round. Everywhere words and images telegraph the kind of serenity and liberation that $500-plus per-square foot affords. "If I had my life to live over," reads floor-to-ceiling tapestries, "I would take more chances. Eat more ice cream. Travel lighter. Ride more merry go rounds."

But the developers' solution to the construction zone concern is not just about providing a refuge. They are establishing separate traffic patterns for residents and for construction workers and have a formal complaint process. They are not, however, taking a "pardon our dust" approach. They are building a homeowner identity that incorporates the construction. "Urban pioneer," read the white-on-sky-blue buttons handed out at a recent gathering for soon-to-be-residents. Books artfully stacked in a lounging area echo the theme: "Undaunted Courage," "Wild in the City," and "Avedon at work in the American West." So does Meriwether fer goodness' sake.

That's not all. The developers have hired someone to help residents get to know one another: former Oregon First Lady Sharon Kitzhaber. Through her communications firm -- Kitzhaber Communications -- she was already helping maestro special events at the Discovery Center, which, according to Prendergast, has become one of the hottest event venues in town.

Kitzhaber's hard work and her skills commanded attention.

"She greets everyone on the same level -- takes their coats. She's able to disarm people," says Prendergast.

Kitzhaber, at home in a Discovery Center office behind a polished maple desk with a framed photo of son Logan, 8, says she will plan field trips, restaurant forays and other gatherings. Kitzhaber also will connect new neighbors with opportunities on governance committees, such as one advising the development of the greenway. They can join the Corbett/Terwilliger/Lair Hill neighborhood association but may eventually form their own.

"My role is really to help homeowners become neighbors," Kitzhaber says. "They're writing their own story and to the extent I can help them with that story, it's very exciting for me."

Soon-to-be homeowner Tom Noguchi also is excited.

An empty nester and an account executive with the Bonneville Power Administration, Noguchi, 62, and his wife, a retired teacher, will trade their Lake Oswego home for a two-bedroom condo in the Meriwether this summer. Noguchi would like the River Blocks' main park to be filled out sooner -- the developers will only plant grass initially as well as erect a river walkway for recreation. But he says he appreciates the role Kitzhaber will play. And he says the developers have helped by being honest about what to expect during construction.

As for the "urban pioneer" moniker?

"I think it fits," says Noguchi. "All of this is going up while we're moving in and so much of it we can watch."

Erin Hoover Barnett: 503-294-5011; ehbarnett@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/portland_news/1145319978299900.xml&coll=7

[CouvScott]

South Waterfront desperately needs light rail, so where is it?
By JIM REDDEN Issue date: Fri, May 5, 2006
The Tribune
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The success of the South Waterfront development district depends on the construction of a long-planned light-rail line that is not yet fully engineered or funded, according to city Commissioner Sam Adams.
Streets in and out of the district will be overwhelmed by traffic without the line and other transportation alternatives, such as the Portland Streetcar, said Adams, who is in charge of the Portland Office of Transportation.
“The South Waterfront project is the most urban development ever planned in an existing city,” he said. “The street system is extremely limited there. Transit options are key to making it work.”
The light-rail line is the second phase of the South Corridor Plan designed to connect downtown to Clackamas County. It includes a new bridge over the Willamette River and is scheduled to be finished in 2014 at a cost of $550 million or more. Although the federal government has funded 60 percent of similar projects in the past, local governments still will have to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for the rest of it — probably requiring voters to raise their property taxes.
“Right now it’s hard to see where the local funds will come from without voters approving a financing plan. There’s just not a lot of available money,” said Ross Roberts, a Metro transportation planner working on the project.
City Commissioner Randy Leonard was surprised to learn the Portland to Milwaukie light-rail line is considered essential for the district to meet its transportation needs.
“I never heard that before,” said Leonard, who was the council’s most vocal critic of the cost overruns of the aerial tram that will connect Oregon Health & Science University’s facilities on Marquam Hill to the South Waterfront.
Although Leonard supports mass transit, he noted that city funding for the Portland to Milwaukie light-rail line is not a done deal.
“We’ll need to look at it closely when all the costs are known,” he said.
Metro now is in the process of reviewing the light-rail line’s alignment and will begin seeking public comment on the project this summer. When the review is over, the new cost estimate probably will be significantly higher than $550 million. That estimate was made in 1998. It did not include an environmental impact study of running the light rail out of downtown along Southwest Lincoln Street, the current proposed alignment.
Nor did the 1998 estimate take into account environmental laws that could dramatically increase the cost of building the bridge across the river. It currently is estimated at $100 million
“Because of laws like the Endangered Species Act, you can only build things in the river at certain times of the year, when fish runs aren’t threatened,” said Adams, who predicts the final cost of the line will be “very expensive.”

Street access points are few

The South Waterfront Planning District consists of 409 acres of former industrial land on the west bank of the Willamette River. It runs from the Marquam Bridge to Southwest Bancroft Steet and is cut off from the rest of the city by Interstate 5. Work is under way in the 130-acre Central District, just south of the Ross Island Bridge.
When the project is finished 18 years from now, the entire area is projected to be a thriving neighborhood with about 5,000 residents, up to 10,000 jobs and a new campus for the Oregon Health & Science University. City officials always have known that traveling in and out of the district would be challenging, however. Current plans call for just two streets at each end of the district, plus two signalized intersections off Southwest Macadam Avenue, which runs along the western edge of the district.
To compensate for the access restrictions, city transportation studies say that no more than 60 percent of all rush-hour trips can be made by one person in a single vehicle. In other words, at least 40 percent of all rush-hour trips must be made using alternative transportation.
Moreover, city transportation studies indicate that at least 30 percent of all trips must be made by alternative transportation during nonrush hours.
According to Greg Jones, the transportation office’s project manager for the district, the light-rail line won’t be needed until the district is almost completely finished — but will be absolutely essential then.
“We need the line to get the high mode split,” said Jones, referring to the split between single-occupancy and all other trips in and out of the district.
Adams acknowledged that no other American city has ever set such a high alternative transportation goal for an urban development project.
“The trips avoided and the trips on transit are really the key here,” Adams said.
To meet the goal, the district was designed from the start to be served by a variety of transportation options. They include new TriMet bus lines, an extension of the streetcar, the OHSU aerial tram, the Lake Oswego trolley and pedestrian and bicycle paths along the Willamette River greenway that is supposed to stretch the length of the district.
According to Adams, the options also include the new lightrail line. Current plans call for it to run along Southwest Lincoln Street to the river. That places the nearest light-rail stop approximately 12 blocks from the Central Disrict, where the tram stops in front of the first OHSU building currently being built there. Residents and workers would be able to reach the stop via the streetcar line that is planned to run the length of the district.

Northern line voted down

The idea of building a light-rail line from downtown across the Willamette River to Milwaukie has been around for a long time. It is part of the South Corridor Project, which calls for running light rail from downtown into Clackamas County The first phase of the project currently is under way. It includes building a light-rail line along Interstate 205 that will connect the Clackamas Town Center to downtown Portland, where another light rail line will run from Union Station to Portland State Univeristy.
Phase II of the plan calls for building a new light-rail line from near PSU through the north end of the district, across the Willamette River to around Southwest Caruthers Street, east to Southeast 12th Avenue and then south to Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard to Milwaukie.
Originally, transportation planners hoped to build light-rail lines from Vancouver, Wash., through downtown to Clackamas County as a single project. It was called the North-South Project and Portland area residents voted to increase their property taxes $475 million to pay for it in 1994. But the project was derailed when Clark County voters turned down their share in 1995. Oregon voters rejected statewide funding for the project in 1996 and again in 1998.
Since then, segments of the line have been built or engineered without asking voters to increase property taxes. The Interstate MAX light-rail line was funded with a mix of urban renewal funds and federal transit dollars. The first phase of the South Corridor Project is being funded by downtown business owners, TriMet, Metro, the state of Oregon and the federal government.
Planning for Phase II of the project — which also is called Milwaukie Light Rail — has been under way for more than a decade. Several options for crossing the Willamette River were considered between 1994 and 1998, including rebuilding the Hawthorne, Ross Island and Sellwood bridges to accommodate light rail. In 1998, Metro adopted a resolution favoring construction of a new bridge from the west end of the Marquam Bridge to Caruthers. That choice now has been incorporated in several land-use plans.
Roberts says the location of the bridge could be reconsidered in coming months, however. Metro now is launching a supplemental environmental study required for federal funding. Because of the current construction in the South Waterfront development district, the study may consider the benefits and costs of moving the bridge to the south.
“When the last study was conducted, South Waterfront was a hypothetical neighborhood. Now towers are springing up like sunflowers,” he said.

Streetcar may make a loop

Wherever the bridge is located, Roberts said it probably also will carry the streetcar over the river.
The streetcar currently runs from Northwest Portland through downtown to PSU and into the South Waterfront. It is operated by Portland Streetcar Inc., a nonprofit corporation that also is working with the city and Metro to build a streetcar line on the east side of the Willamette River.
Current plans call for a new line to loop from the soon-to-be-built Burnside Bridgehead development at the east end of the Burnside Bridge to OMSI via Southeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Grand Avenue. According to Roberts, the plans also call for the streetcar to cross the river over the proposed Caruthers Crossing, allowing connections to the downtown streetcar line.
“This will create a loop on both sides of the river,” Roberts said.
But the new light-rail line and proposed streetcar connections are not the end of the district’s transportation needs. According to Adams, several other critical transportation projects have yet to be completed, although much of the funding already has been identified for them. They include new and improved roads at each end of the district, extending the streetcar through the district to Southwest Lowell Street and building an overpass along the western edge of the district above Macadam to reduce congestion.
The total cost of the other projects currently is estimated at more than $221 million, with much of the money expected to come from urban renewal dollars, local improvement district funds and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

[pdxstreetcar]

.

[MarkDaMan]

Family of condos rises on South Waterfront skyline
Sunday, May 28, 2006
The Oregonian

Realty Trust Group is handling residential sales in the River Blocks project, co-developed by Portland-based firms Gerding/Edlen and Williams & Dame.

The only units still available at The Meriwether are three penthouses, ranging from a 1,600-square-foot two-bedroom for $815,610 to a 2,540-square-foot two-bedroom with a den for $1,399,000.

However, two sibling condominium projects under construction -- the John Ross and Atwater Place -- are still selling a wide range of floor plans.

The John Ross, a planned 31-story elliptical tower, was designed by architect Bob Thompson. Most of its 303 units (242 in the tower and 61 in the podium) feature curved walls of windows. Located at Southwest Pennoyer Street and Bond Avenue, it is expected to be completed in fall of 2007 and is 75-percent sold.

Units still available range from a 1,061-square-foot loft for $399,000, to a 5,085-square-foot four-bedroom penthouse for $4 million. Floor plans can be found at www.thejohnross.com.

Plans for Atwater Place, designed by architect Thomas Hacker, call for a 23-story rectangular tower featuring 212 units, including five town homes. Prices range from $369,000 for a 930-square-foot one-bedroom, to $3.5 million for a 3,800-square-foot three-bedroom with a den.

Atwater Place is on the river at Southwest River Parkway and Pennoyer Street. Completion is slated for December 2008, and more than 500 people have placed their names on an interest list. Floor plans are at www.atwaterplace.com.

Visitors can view plans and models at the Discovery Center, 0680 S.W. Bancroft Ave.; open Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

-- Jan Behrs
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/homes_real_estate/1148669720265520.xml?oregonian?hrehs&coll=7

[tworivers]

I think the completion date for the Atwater is wrong.
Shouldn't it be Dec 2007?

[MarkDaMan]

^good catch! according to atwaterplace.com 'Atwater place is scheduled to be completed in late 2007, with the final move-in scheduled for early 2008.'

[MarkDaMan]

New builder in town prompts wage push
Union leaders press council for guarantee on PDC projects
By JIM REDDEN Issue date: Fri, Jun 9, 2006
The Tribune A Canadian construction company is prompting Oregon labor leaders to press the City Council over a long-simmering dispute — whether to compel the Portland Development Commission to require that state prevailing-wage rates be paid on all its projects.
ITC of Vancouver, British Columbia, has opened a Portland office and is planning to work on many future construction projects in the metropolitan area. Its first project is the Benson Tower, a privately financed 26-story condominium being built at Southwest 11th Avenue and Clay Street. ITC also is consulting on the next phase of construction in the South Waterfront urban renewal district, a nine-acre parcel owned by Prometheus Real Estate Group Inc.
“We didn’t come to Portland to do just one project,” said ITC’s senior vice president and chief operating officer, Lloyd Tosoff. “We expect to become a major player in the Pacific Northwest.”
Most of the large construction companies that work on PDC projects, including both the Hoffman and Walsh construction companies, employ only union subcontractors. But ITC is an open shop, meaning it employs both union and nonunion subcontractors.
“We respect unions and nonunions alike,” Tosoff said.
That worries union leaders like Bob Shiprack, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building Trades Council. He believes that ITC’s presence in the market will drive down the wages on all major construction projects, including those that employ union workers.
“We’re very concerned about ITC coming into Portland,” Shiprack said. “We think it would be bad for working people.”
Although unions could not stop ITC from working on the Benson Tower, they are trying to prevent the company from employing nonunion subcontractors in the South Waterfront urban renewal district, which is managed by the PDC. The unions’ main tactic at this point is to persuade the PDC to require that all developers on its largest projects pay state prevailing wages. The rates — which are set by the state labor commissioner — mirror union wages in the Portland area.
PDC Executive Director Bruce Warner said the agency is committed to paying fair wages on its projects. He noted that prevailing wages are now paid about 60 percent of the time, including on all street and sewer improvement projects. But Warner said the state’s prevailing-wage law does not cover many of the developers that work with the agency on the public-private partnerships that have built much of the Pearl District and are at work in the South Waterfront urban renewal district.
“The law does not say we have to require developers that do not receive any direct funding from us to pay prevailing wages,” Warner said.
The unions made their case before the council Wednesday at a hearing arranged by Commissioner Sam Adams. Although the announced subject was employment practices that should be avoided in Portland, several speakers took the opportunity to disparage ITC, including Cliff Puckett, organizer for the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, who said, “We don’t need irresponsible, out-of-country contractors driving down our wage.”
Tosoff said the unions are merely trying to protect their turf.
“We’re the new kid in town, and we expect to be treated different. It’s called self-interest,” he said.
The council, however, seems ready to back the unions. After Wednesday’s testimony, Mayor Tom Potter and all four commissioners expressed concern about the need for more family-wage jobs in Portland. And a majority of the council — Adams, Randy Leonard and Erik Sten — appeared to be ready to direct the PDC to require that prevailing wages be paid on more of its projects.
Leonard said: “It’s what I care about. It’s what I am.”

Many changes since 1959

The 1959 Oregon Legislature passed the state prevailing-wage-rate laws to require that minimum wages paid on public works projects do not undercut the standard wages paid in the areas where the work is occurring.
The law authorizes the labor commissioner to set and enforce the wages paid on such projects. The commissioner oversees the Bureau of Labor and Industries, which contracts with the Oregon Employment Department for annual surveys to determine the prevailing wages paid in 14 regions in the state.
Much has changed since the law was passed in 1959. Urban renewal agencies such as the PDC now partner with private companies on urban renewal projects. The PDC pays for infrastructure improvements like roads and sewers, while private developers construct the office, retail, apartment and condominium buildings. These are called public-private partnerships.
State Labor Commissioner Dan Gardner thinks the law should apply to at least some of these projects — the ones with the greatest amount of PDC involvement. The PDC so far has disagreed, saying the Legislature has not included public-private partnerships in the law. Only one case has ever gone to trial; the PDC won it last month, to the chagrin of Gardner and union officials.

A case in point

The history of the building that now houses the Henry V event-planning firm shows how deeply the PDC can be involved in a project without its being considered public under the law.
The PDC purchased a 1.8-acre parcel in the renewal area for $1,725,600 in May 2000. The land, at 6360 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., had been unused for many years. At the direction of the PDC’s board of commissioners, the agency marketed the land through a real estate firm. A local marketing and communications firm, National Meeting Corp. Inc., began looking at the property in summer 2002. In January 2004, firm owner Douglas Daggett and Vice President Patrick Eckford formed a company, Tin Roof LLC, to develop the property.
To make the deal work, the PDC entered into an agreement with Tin Roof in June 2004. As part of the agreement, the PDC said it would loan $1.16 million to Tin Roof for the purchase of the property and to credit Tin Roof another $15,000 toward the purchase price because of a latent defect in the existing building.
The agreement also gave the PDC the power to review and approve the design of the building to make sure it “enhances N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, serves as an anchor development to the northern end of the (urban renewal area), and complements a burgeoning neighborhood node where a mix of uses is being encouraged.”
The PDC did not provide any of the approximately $1.74 million construction contract funds. Work began in January 2005 and was completed about six months later. The project came to the attention of the Bureau of Labor and Industries when a union — Operating Engineers Local 701 — complained that prevailing wages were not paid on it. The labor agency investigated, concluded that prevailing wages should have been paid, and entered a judgment against the PDC and several contractors on the project.
The PDC appealed the judgment to the Multnomah County Circuit Court, claiming the project was not covered by state prevailing wage-rate laws.
Judge Henry Kantor sided with the PDC and dismissed the labor judgment in May. But he did not issue a written ruling explaining his decision. Gardner has appealed the ruling to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Prometheus may be exempt

Even if the PDC requires major developers to pay prevailing wages, the upcoming Prometheus projects may be exempt. Unlike other South Waterfront developers, Prometheus has not entered into a binding development agreement with the PDC.
“We’re not asking anything from the city,” said Prometheus project manager Ellen Brown.
The PDC’s Warner agreed.
“Prometheus is not a development partner at this point,” he said.
Puckett of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters believes all major developers working in city-approved urban renewal districts should comply with the law, even if they are receiving no PDC loans or grants.
“If they’re working in an area where the city is building the infrastructure, they should be a responsible company,” Puckett said.
Email Jim Redden
http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=35650

[tworivers]

Does anyone know the current status of the Alexan? I seem to recall that they re-applied for a tax abatement, after the initial City Council 'no', but I've heard nothing about the situation since then. Is it dead? originally they wanted to start building last November...

Also, does anyone know the status of the streetcar extension to Lowell? I remember reading somewhere awhile back that the city was waiting to hear about whether or not they were getting some sort of grant to help pay for it, and that they'd find out this month.

Lastly, is any site work underway on the Prometheus property? I'm curious when they will be getting started, and if construction is tied into the status of the streetcar at all, seeing as block 46 is at Lowell between Moody and Bond.

[CouvScott]

Rumors swirl that 2001 deal between gravel firm’s owner and city might be in peril
By Nick Budnick

The Portland Tribune, 11.6 hours ago

L.E. Baskow / The Portland Tribune

Ross Island actually is two islands that were joined artificially in 1927. The result is 175 acres of land nearly surrounding a 106-acre lagoon.
Recent uncertainty over an agreement to hand over most of Ross Island to the city of Portland should start being clarified today.

This morning, according to his public calendar, Mayor Tom Potter is scheduled to meet with the island’s owner, Robert Pamplin Jr., at City Hall to discuss the status of Pamplin’s earlier agreement to hand over parts of the Willamette River landmark to the city.

Pamplin and his attorney, Frank Cable, recently met with Potter’s chief of staff, Nancy Hamilton, to discuss the future of the island. “We had a meeting, we talked,” Cable said. “We’re going to have a meeting next week, we’re going to talk some more and hopefully we’re going to come up with something that’s good for everybody.”

“Dr. Pamplin wanted to meet with the mayor,” said Potter spokesman John Doussard. “We don’t know what he’s going to say, so we’re going to find out.”

What’s colloquially known as Ross Island actually is two islands that were joined artificially in 1927, creating a stretch of 175 acres of land that nearly surrounds a 106-acre lagoon. One of Pamplin’s companies, Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co., mined Ross Island for 75 years.

But in January 2001, facing increasing pressure from environmental regulators, Pamplin — who also owns the Portland Tribune — agreed in a handshake deal with Mayor Vera Katz to hand over a portion of the land to the city.

At the time, Ross Island Sand & Gravel also renegotiated its restoration agreement with the state in a deal that, while appearing to save Pamplin money, also would create a more hospitable place for wildlife, including endangered chinook salmon that could use the lagoon as a pit stop.

The deal, however, has been delayed while a cleanup plan was finalized with the state Department of Environmental Quality. That deal was finished last month.

Since then, concern over the future of the agreement has been stoked by rumors at City Hall that the transaction with the city was dead.

The rumors in turn sparked a story in Willamette Week last week quoting an anonymous city official who said Pamplin was backing off from his earlier commitment by trying to hand over to the city all liability associated with the island — such as future obligations to clean up any contamination that has not yet been discovered — as well as by handing no money over to pay for future maintenance.

Asked about the earlier agreement, Kathleen Gardipee, an aide to city Commissioner Erik Sten who monitored the negotiations, told the Portland Tribune that the handshake deal did include a level of gray, but “initially we understood that there would be some negotiation on liability, and some sort of fund going forward.”

Included in that, she said, was an understanding that both sides in the deal would engage in give-and-take in order to hammer out the details. If that is no longer the agreement, she said, then “it seems something’s changed.”

Her version was echoed by conservationist Mike Houck, another participant in the negotiations, in an interview with the Tribune. He agreed that the issue of how future legal concerns would be dealt with had not been settled in the earlier negotiations.

But Houck said he felt Pamplin did agree in concept to some unspecified level of endowment to help pay for future maintenance of the island, although it probably would be less than the $500,000 that Houck had suggested.

If Pamplin’s desire is to transfer the land in phases to coordinate with the cleanup, Houck said, that would be understandable. But if there is any attempt to withdraw from the agreement to turn the land over to the city, Houck maintained that it would go to whether “Dr. Pamplin is a man of his word.”

Cable declined to discuss his understanding of the earlier agreement, or to say anything else about the topic at hand except to say the current negotiations concerned “the future of a portion of Ross Island.”

Len Bergstein, a lobbyist who formerly represented Pamplin in the negotiations but who is no longer employed by Pamplin, said his recollection was that the city had agreed in concept to a transfer of any future liability, since Pamplin already had agreed to take responsibility for all known contamination and necessary restoration measures in his reclamation agreement with the state.

Bergstein maintained that while the issue of an endowment was raised by Houck and the city, “As with any negotiation, we never said flat-out no, and we never said flat-out yes.”

As for statements to the contrary, “I’m flabbergasted — that really is a rewriting of history.”

Under the earlier agreement with the city, Pamplin reportedly would retain a gravel-washing plant as well as about 25 acres on the island. And newspaper accounts substantiate that the issue of liability is nothing new. In late 2005, an Oregonian story quoted James Rue of Ross Island Sand & Gravel as saying, “Clearly, the owner wants a release of liability, and the (city) doesn’t want to give that.”

[CouvScott]

Thursday, July 13, 2006
By Bill Monroe
Great blue herons float in the still morning air, wings set as they sail from last night's roost to search for breakfast along the shoreline.

A red-tailed hawk glares from a tree at intruders in a boat, then resumes its search for a feathered meal.

The distant hum of traffic on busy bridges is but a subtle irritation, a reminder of just how close this silent scene -- hidden from view yet virtually at the doorstep of Portland harbor -- is to the heart of a major metropolis.

Ross Island, one of Portland's most important wildlife sanctuaries, slowly but surely is returning to normal. Or at least as normal as humans can remake it after decades of mining its once-pristine lagoon for sand and rocks to build our homes and highways.

No matter the outcome of discussions between city leaders and Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co. over the island's future as Portland's newest park, a single melody emerges from separate harmonies. The gravel company owns the island now.

The island's fish and wildlife seem once again destined for peace and quiet.

Humans, instead of hawks and herons, are about to become the observers.

"That island is principally going to be habitat for a refuge," says Mike Houck, director of the Urban Greenspaces Institute. "It's going to be intriguing how people use it. A lot of people are talking about what kind of use ought to be there."

Instead of filling in 80- and 90-foot holes in the lagoon's bottom to a uniform depth of 20 feet, plans call for a 34-acre wetland at the southern end and a few additional acres in the deeper north end over the next several years. The wetlands, Houck says, will be a key rearing area for salmon. Downriver fry and smolts from throughout the Willamette River watershed tend to linger in the lower Portland harbor for as long as a year before moving on to the Columbia River, their escalator to the Pacific Ocean.

The wetland also will attract even more shorebirds and upland species than the few now using the island's perimeter.

Houck, who helps the Audubon Society of Portland lead kayak, canoe and walking tours of the island (reached only by water), says the narrow metropolitan atoll abounds in birds, from eagles -- he recently saw a peregrine hit a bald eagle in the air near the island "just for fun" -- to warblers, thrushes, nighthawks and others.

The process of reconstructing salmon and wetland habitat will take plenty of enhancement work, both above and below the lagoon's surface, says Todd Alsbury, district fish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Those plans progress on several fronts, with various state and federal agencies pitching in.

Once the wetland is built, though, salmon will almost immediately come, Alsbury says.

A 12-pound salmon explodes from the glassy water, seeming to look around before crashing back into the quiet bay to seek another aquatic freeway upriver. Its ripples barely flatten before a small tugboat chugs from the sand and gravel operation over to a moored barge.

The tug's occupants hook to the empty barge and churn a familiar wake toward the lagoon's entrance. Behind them, a pod of fuzzy goslings paddles to where the barge had moored, the birds probing the stirred-up water for morsels.

Seasonal flooding once flushed low areas on Ross Island's southern end. But they were bermed against winter runoff, and the area is now simply a large bay.

Bud Hartman of the Oregon Bass & Panfish Club says the berms cut short the annual injection of bass, panfish and smaller prey species, as well as nutrients. Now, as the lagoon is enclosed, fishing success has waned.

"A lot of the guys and gals just don't come in here anymore," he says. "No one needs to really go in there."

The island's perimeter, however, bounded on both sides by the Willamette River and its slough past Oaks Bottom, is a rich piscatorial tapestry of water and habitat for crappie, bass, passing salmon and even sturgeon.

The lagoon isn't easily reached by boat. The nearest ramp is at Willamette Park, southwest of the island, and the only entry to the lagoon is on the opposite, east, side.

Although water-skiers and scooters occasionally fracture the lagoon's calm, they more often remain in either the Willamette or the slough.

Urban Greenspaces' Houck would just as soon restrict powerboats from entering.

Randy Henry, policy planning analyst for the Oregon State Marine Board, says that although he's heard several suggestions, there's been no formal proposal for boating restrictions in the lagoon.

Such a rule change is well within the marine board's jurisdiction, but an official request must come from either the city of Portland or Multnomah County. The marine board then would open the proposal for public comment before reaching a decision. The process could take months.

"We've heard various pitches to make it a paddle-only area, or electric motors," Henry says. "It's all pretty hypothetical right now. There's a lot to consider.

"It's popular enough, and in the midst of an urban area, that we'd take a hard look. Typically we don't like to take away boating opportunity."

Houck, though, says boaters "have more and more access to the river all the time," especially in the developing South Waterfront project across from Ross Island's west shore.

"There should be someplace in the city that's safe from all that," he says, "One place where wildlife has the upper hand and humans come second."

[MarkDaMan]

The Builder's Eye: South Waterfront condos favor the Earth
Saturday, July 15, 2006
By JEFF KUECHLE
The Oregonian

In the war against pollution from stormwater runoff, the designers and builders of condominiums in the South Waterfront District have enlisted an unlikely ally: dirt.

Specifically, roof dirt -- six to eight inches of it. And gravel. And plants, such as purple spurge, wallflower and stone crop.

The concept is called an "eco-roof," and its purpose is to absorb as much stormwater as possible before it reaches the nearby Willamette River.

"Anything up to a heavy rain will be absorbed," said Kelly Saito of Gerding/Edlen, co-developer with Williams & Dame of the River Blocks at South Waterfront, a project that includes The Meriwether, John Ross and Atwater Place condominiums.

Heavy rains overflow to a downspout system that funnels to a treatment facility on the east side of the district, Saito said.

High-rise urban condominium projects might not be the first things that come to mind when people think of eco-friendly buildings.

But at The Meriwether, where move-ins began in April, eco-roofs on the condo's two towers are just the beginning of the green amenities that the building's designers have incorporated in hopes of a coveted LEED "gold" rating for environmental friendliness.

Saito, Gerding/Edlen sustainability coordinator Renee Worme, and architects Bruce Brown and Kyle Andersen of GBD Architects, recently led a tour of a just-finished unit in The Meriwether east tower, pointing out its green features.

"The doors and cabinetry have agrifiber cores, a type of fiberboard made from wheat straw or sunflower-seed shells and formaldehyde-free binder, covered with a thin veneer of hardwood," Brown said.

Other features include floors made from sustainably harvested, golden-brown merbau from Brazil. Floor-to-ceiling windows have high-performance glass that limits solar gain while admitting as much natural light as possible, cutting down on the need for electric lighting and helping to keep the units cooler in the summer.

Tread lightly

According to Andersen, the small footprint of The Meriwether -- just 9,000 square feet per tower -- helps maximize the use of natural light.

"There are only five to six units per floor, which means lots of exterior glass and exposure," he said. "There's plenty of opportunity to let natural light in."

The units also feature Energy Star appliances, ultra-high-efficiency water-source heat pumps, and low-flow faucets and showerheads. Carpeting is natural wool; all interior coatings and adhesives are low- and zero-VOC (volatile organic compounds) to maximize indoor air quality.

It all adds up to a condominium complex that is expected to use 30 percent less water and up to 35 percent less energy than the Oregon Energy Code baseline, Worme said.

The green ethos extends to The Meriwether's common areas as well. Every level features closet-sized recycling facilities. Outdoor courtyards and walkways are finished with permeable pavers to trap runoff before it enters the storm sewer system. The courtyards also are bordered with native plants and irrigated by low-flow drip systems.

The South Waterfront District is designed to be bike- and mass transit-friendly.

The Meriwether residents even receives free "green" cleaning supplies from Coastwide Laboratories.

How important is all of this to prospective buyers?

"It varies from buyer to buyer," Saito said. "You can't quantify it. But it is clear to us that it is an important factor in the decision-making process for many buyers. An important factor, but certainly not the only factor."

The enviromental sensitivity of The Meriwether was significant to Tom Noguchi and his wife, Merle, who recently decided to sell their Lake Oswego home and buy into the complex. Noguchi is a transmission system engineer for the Bonneville Power Administration.

"In my job, we're very sensitive to environmental impacts and energy conservation," he said. "The Meriwether structure and GBD's design addressed those concerns."

Noguchi said other South Waterfront amenities, including its proximity to downtown; unrivaled views of rivers, skyline and mountains; and easy access to mass transit, also figured into the couple's decision to buy a 10th-floor unit in The Meriwether's west tower.

"What we wanted was a development that had leading-edge technologies that would provide long-term value for resale," Noguchi said. "The fact that they used materials that minimize the impact to the environment was important to Merle and I. We were very impressed by what GBD did in terms of designing The Meriwether -- it made it a natural for us."

Jeff Kuechle is a Portland-area writer. He can be reached at jeffkuechle@comcast.net.
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/advertorial/1152915928308000.xml?oregonian?adnh&coll=7

[MarkDaMan]

in a small snipet on the front page of the business section today, there was a picture and caption about a group from Qatar that is visting Portland, more specifically SoWa, to learn how to bring this kind of development there...

[pdxstreetcar]

I was down there a few days ago and felt the same way about the sowa especially now that the waterfront path and sidewalks around the meriwether were open. I noticed a public hearing notice on a telephone pole next to the lower tram station about the lowell street extension, i think the hearing was in about a week.

Next in Line: Block 46

BLOCK 46, SOUTH WATERFRONT
Between Moody and Bond @ Lowell
Applicant: Jason Roberts, ANKROM MOISAN ARCHITECTS

The applicant is requesting Design Review approval for the multi-building development on Block 46 of Portland’s South Waterfront District. The proposal includes three separate mixed-use buildings with a common below grade parking garage. A 20-story condominium tower to the north containing retail, housing and parking. The two mid-rise buildings to the south are 5 story
and 7 story condominiums with retail at the ground level facing the public streets. Two levels of below grade parking provide approximately 374 private residential stalls.
A Modification is requested to reduce Parking Stall Aisle Dimensions, and an Adjustment is requested to allow Loading Access from an Access-Restricted Street (SW Bond).

Date of Hearing: August 17, 2006 at 1:30 PM
1. LU 06-137171 DZM, AD Tim Heron, 503-823-7726

[CouvScott]

SUBJECT: Report Number 06-79
Briefing on 8th Amendment to the South Waterfront Central District Development Agreement in the North Macadam Urban Renewal Area
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
BOARD ACTION REQUESTED
None
SUMMARY
The Portland Development Commission (PDC), Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), and the North Macadam Investors LLC (NMI), collectively the “DA Parties,” have negotiated an 8th Amendment to the South Waterfront Central District Development Agreement (DA) that implements the provisions of the April 11, 2006, South Waterfront Public Projects Funding Proposal (the Proposal).
A draft of the 8th Amendment terms has been reviewed by the North Macadam Urban Renewal Advisory Committee (URAC) and other interested parties. The PDC Board of Commissioners (Board) will be briefed on the final provisions of the 8th Amendment and will receive a summary of comments made by the URAC. The Chair of the URAC will be available on July 26 to provide URAC comments from its July 20, 2006 meeting.
No further Board action is required regarding the 8th Amendment to the DA. However, City Council’s approval is required and is expected to be transmitted, together with other implementing Inter-governmental Agreements (IGAs), during the month of August.
BACKGROUND
On April 11 and 12, 2006, the Board and the City Council approved the Proposal as negotiated among the DA Parties. The Proposal, attached hereto as Attachment A, was intended to provide the basis for a future 8th Amendment to the DA. On April 11, 2006, the Board authorized (Resolution No. 6348) the Executive Director to complete final negotiations of an 8th Amendment consistent with the Proposal and to execute such 8th Amendment following City Council acceptance of the same. An Amended and Restated DA incorporating the 8th Amendment is attached hereto as Attachment B. The 8th Amendment includes the following key provisions consistent with the Proposal:
• Funding for certain major projects and programs described in the DA as follows:
Board Report – Central District DA 8th Amendment
July 26, 2006 Page 2 of 3
a. Portland Tram Financing: OHSU and NMI agreed to provide $12.0 million and PDC will provide $5 million of North Macadam Urban Renewal Area (URA) funding to fully fund the aerial tram project budget. The total tram budget will increase from $40 million to $57 million with a lump sum for construction.
b. Portland Streetcar Funding: The City of Portland Office of Transportation (PDOT) agreed to provide $700,000 toward the Lowell Streetcar Extension and has applied for $2.1 million from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) Connect Oregon Grant Program.
c. Neighborhood Park: PDC will allocate $4 million of URA funding to the design and construction of the final permanent improvements for the Neighborhood Park.
d. South Waterfront Greenway: PDC will allocate $4 million of URA funding for design and construction of permanent improvements for the Central District Greenway. Portland Parks and Recreation (Parks) will commit $2 million of Parks system development charge proceeds from payments received from new projects in the URA. Parks will commit Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program grant proceeds if received.
e. Affordable Housing: The 8th Amendment provides for additional PDC URA funding of $18.7 million for the first 200-unit affordable housing development and acquisition of 3 to 5 affordable housing sites. NMI has been designated as the future owner/developer of affordable housing on Block 49, located at the corner of SW Bancroft and SW Moody Avenue.
f. Economic Development: The 8th Amendment provides for PDC URA funding of $3.5 million for a Bio-Science Industry Development initiative in partnership with OHSU.
g. Transportation Infrastructure Contingency: The 8th Amendment provides for PDC URA funding of $3 million in transportation infrastructure contingency to cover unanticipated shortfalls in transportation projects.
• Provisions related to the implementation of the DA as amended by the 8th Amendment are as follows:
a. Local Improvement District Financing: The City will agree to reduce the bump rate on local improvement district (LID) assessment contracts from 1.25 percent to 0.25 percent. This reduced bump rate will apply to all future assessment contracts for LIDs throughout the City and is not specific to the Tram LID.
b. LID Financing Flexibility: The City will allow financing flexibility for LID liabilities from one parcel to another within an LID, provided that the granting and receiving properties are under the same ownership and that certain underwriting standards are met.
Board Report – Central District DA 8th Amendment
July 26, 2006 Page 3 of 3
c. OHSU Taxable Development: PDC will invest additional public funds in the Phase I OHSU Parking Garage if OHSU develops taxable projects in the URA that generate Tax Increment Revenue. PDC’s investment will equal 50 percent of the Tax Increment Funds projected to be generated from such projects but in no event exceed 50 percent of OHSU’s cost of construction of the Phase 1 Parking Garage.
d. NMI Gap Payment Obligations: NMI will commit to $34.7 million additional gap payment obligations from scheduled development sufficient to support City’s tax increment financing investments.
e. Project Schedule: In connection with the 8th Amendment, Exhibit J to the DA has been revised to include adjustments to the Project Schedule to reflect the agreed upon project development timelines for the above projects and programs.
On April 11, 2006, the Board also authorized (Resolution No. 6348) the Executive Director to approve any IGAs that may be required to implement the 8th Amendment. Under the 8th Amendment, PDC’s IGAs with City of Portland Office of Management and Finance, PDOT, and Parks require amendment. PDC is currently negotiating the amendment of such IGAs. Drafts of the amended IGAs with each respective bureau are attached hereto as Attachment C.
During the course of negotiations of the final 8th Amendment provisions, a draft of the 8th Amendment terms was shared with the URAC and interested parties for discussion at the URAC’s July 20, 2006, regular meeting. The Chair of the North Macadam URAC will present the comments of the URAC to the Board as part of the briefing.
The URA budget has been adjusted to include the impact of the 8th Amendment, and a Financial Summary of the FY 2006-07 Adopted Budget and Forecast is attached hereto as Attachment D.
ATTACHMENTS:
A. South Waterfront Public Projects Funding Proposal, April 11, 2006, annotated June 21, 2006 with references to Sections in Attachment B incorporating the provisions of the South Waterfront Public Projects Funding Proposal
B. An Amended and Restated South Waterfront Central District Development Agreement incorporating the 8th Amendment
C. Draft Amended IGAs with City of Portland Office of Management and Finance, Office of Transportation and Portland Parks and Recreation.
D. Financial Summary

[tworivers]

Have any of you seen this before?

http://www.pdc.us/pdf/ura/north_macadam/nmac-tour-handout_6-06.pdf

Has a brief mention of the Zidell property and future plans for the site involving a "nationally reknowned" urban design firm. Isn't the barge operation supposed to move to the riverfront below U of P in N PDX? I thought they'd even bought land up there.

[der Reisender]

i would bet it still will move up there and that zidell just plans to make some money in the process by putting some buildings on what they own in sowa

[pdxstreetcar]

Block 46
http://www.portlandonline.com/bds/index.cfm?a=125738&c=42263

[sirsimon]

I find the shorter buildings that are part of this project to be the most interesting as the corners appear rounded.

If some of these projects are going to be stuck in the monolithic mold (slabby design), I wish they would at least get creative with different colored glass (why not mix it up with unusual colors like bright green, rose, and aqua), and perhaps different textures to the skin (ribbed for your pleasure, etc.). :)

[MarkDaMan]

This lady has an incredible view of the John Ross. If anyone can scan the pic from the back pages of today's inPortland, it's an awesome site!

Room with a 'whew!' -- riverfront plan is lofty
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Fred Leeson
The Oregonian

Norys Glenna lives in a strange neighborhood.

Big trucks jounce on uneven streets. Power tools whine. Clanging emanates from unfinished buildings. Dust fills the air. Temporary street closures make driving difficult. The new city park is a veritable swamp.

Glenna loves it all. "I have this incredible view," she says of her 19th-floor condominium in the Meriwether. "I have everything. It's a fabulous dream come true."

The two-tower Meriwether project is the first of several towers to open for residents in the South Waterfront Central District, where condos are springing up from former industrial land south of the Ross Island Bridge. Three other towers are under construction, and the Portland Design Commission this month approved plans for a fourth.

The planned 3,000-unit neighborhood will take several years to finish, but changes are unfolding quickly. The Portland Streetcar will expand to Southwest Gibbs Street next month, soon to be followed by the aerial tram.

A temporary riverfront esplanade has been installed along the Willamette River, and a rental storage building has been replaced by two blocks of a green -- if muddy -- public park.

A 40-year veteran of Minnesota winters, Glenna wanted milder weather as she looked for a place to retire. "I also wanted a community where urban development was well prepared," she says.

After looking over plans for the South Waterfront, she was convinced. "The urban planning seems to have taken a lot into consideration," she says. Since taking possession in July, Glenna has been impressed by Portland's friendliness -- in her neighborhood and elsewhere. "Nobody has been too busy to help," she says. "The people are alive and friendly."

The Portland Design Commission, which reviews all new buildings in the area, recently approved a three-building complex that will add 330 units on a block bounded by Southwest Moody and Bond avenues between Abernethy and Lowell streets. The tallest building will stand 20 stories; the others will have five and seven.

Plans call for a T-shaped public walkway through the new complex, including one 60-foot-wide plaza. "The more dense we get, the more important these voids are," says Mike McCulloch, the commission chairman. "Even though it's a big open field at the moment, someday we're going to cherish these public spaces."

Designed by Ankrom Moisan architects, the as-yet unnamed project "goes well beyond some other projects in the neighborhood," McCulloch adds, including a heavy concentration of ground-level retail and restaurant space.

But whether everything gets built on schedule could be affected by a downturn in the condo market. Likewise, budget issues could delay further development of the park and an ambitious riverfront greenway plan.

Glenna, for one, took note of plans for a small marina near her building and the connection of the hiking/bicycle trail to the larger Willamette Greenway. "That will make it frosting on the cake," she says.

Fred Leeson: 503-294-5946; fredleeson@news.oregonian.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/portland_news/1156220706294800.xml&coll=7

[MarkDaMan]

does anyone know where our Block 46 thread is?

From the article above, I wanted to post this:

"The Portland Design Commission, which reviews all new buildings in the area, recently approved a three-building complex that will add 330 units on a block bounded by Southwest Moody and Bond avenues between Abernethy and Lowell streets. The tallest building will stand 20 stories; the others will have five and seven.

Plans call for a T-shaped public walkway through the new complex, including one 60-foot-wide plaza. "The more dense we get, the more important these voids are," says Mike McCulloch, the commission chairman. "Even though it's a big open field at the moment, someday we're going to cherish these public spaces."

Designed by Ankrom Moisan architects, the as-yet unnamed project "goes well beyond some other projects in the neighborhood," McCulloch adds, including a heavy concentration of ground-level retail and restaurant space."

Looks like we should be seeing some activity on the Prometheus property pretty soon!

[CouvScott]

This lady has an incredible view of the John Ross. If anyone can scan the pic from the back pages of today's inPortland, it's an awesome site!


http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/inportlandstory1.jpg
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/inportlandstory2.jpg

[Dougall5505]

thanks for the scan couvscott. l like how from one side the building looks like a perfect circle but from the other it looks very elliptical

[CouvScott]

ANALYSIS: PDC deal squeaks by city as public input, strategy questioned
By Nick Budnick

The Portland Tribune 14.3 hours ago

L.E. Baskow / Portland Tribune

Construction continues in the South Waterfront, Portland’s newest neighborhood, for which the city just narrowly approved an amended development agreement.
Continuing controversy Wednesday over the Portland Development Commission’s plan for the future of South Waterfront suggests that the City Council’s heightened scrutiny of the urban renewal agency is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon.

In a 3-2 vote, the council approved an amended development agreement for the project, intended to spur private investment in the biggest remaining parcel of underdeveloped land in the city, following a public hearing that revisited old disagreements and raised new ones.

Commissioner Sam Adams was joined by Mayor Tom Potter and Commissioner Dan Saltzman in voting in favor of the agreement. But Potter and Saltzman remained largely silent as Adams championed the deal and deflected criticism and questions raised by Commissioners Randy Leonard and Erik Sten.

Leonard and Sten attacked the plan as too generous to landowners and developers in the district, including Oregon Health & Science University.

Leonard zeroed in on new language in the agreement that capped OHSU’s financial contribution to infrastructure improvements, but did not do the same for the city of Portland.

“If I were representing OHSU, I would fight for language exactly like this,” Leonard said. “I’m wondering, Who is fighting for us?”

Sten, for his part, called it a “fundamentally flawed agreement” but said that since the basic framework of the project had been approved by the council in April, it was beyond repair. He joined Leonard in questioning why the city had paid $3 million for a piece of property for affordable housing that was later appraised at $1.5 million.

Sten said that his concern today is similar to one he expressed a decade ago over the PDC’s urban renewal plan for the River District, where the so-called Pearl District is located: that the PDC should have acquired property for housing in the area years earlier, before the city had boosted property values by committing to spend millions on road, greenway and park improvements.

“I have learned from history, but I fear our (city) negotiators have not,” he said.

However, Bruce Warner, head of the PDC, stressed the positives of the deal – progress on a streetcar extension as well as in housing and green spaces, describing it as a “good news story” and a “reasonable agreement.”

Warner said that the district is well on its way to becoming a success, to which Leonard responded that he did not doubt it – but, he asked, a success for who?

Leonard questioned why, rather than focusing on building housing for the very poor, the city was including approximately 100 units of affordable housing for people who are making more than 80 percent of the region’s median family income. As defined by the federal government, 80 percent of the median family income for a family of four is $54,300 a year.

“The question is, Who is benefiting from this?” Leonard said.

Supporters of the project say that the city’s investment will be repaid with a thriving, high-quality residential neighborhood. The South Waterfront deal is just the latest in a series of public-private partnerships that have advanced the city, they say.

Although the deal was approved, the tenor of the hearing was significant as a barometer in the continuing drama over the relationship between the PDC and the council. The semi-independent agency is the city’s main economic development arm and is largely under the control of Potter.

But despite the reform efforts undertaken by the mayor, Sten, Leonard and Adams have discussed placing a measure on the ballot next year that would give the council more control over the PDC’s internal budgeting.

Following months of controversy, relations between the city’s elected council and the PDC seemed to be improving. But the resurgence of tension over South Waterfront signals that Leonard and Sten are unlikely to stop asking questions.

Nor did the hearing satisfy citizens who have been monitoring the South Waterfront agreement.

“It’s a scam, and you can quote me on that,” said neighbor and architect Jerry Ward, who sits on the citizens advisory committee that oversees the PDC’s activities in South Waterfront. He thinks the deal is too generous.

Ward was echoed by Shelly Lorenzen of the League of Women Voters of Portland, meanwhile, who complained that the earlier version of the agreement approved by the council in April had progressed through the public process in just 48 hours – hardly enough time for a meaningful public debate.

When the league complained in April, she said, city officials promised that the final agreement, considered Wednesday, would receive a full public discussion – a promise that she said the city has not fulfilled.

This observation was echoed by a landowner’s representative, Edward Trompke of the Jordan Schrader law firm. Representing Zidell Marine, he submitted written comments saying that although the agreement had “evolved” since being approved by the council in April, the “amount of public review and input has been very limited.”

[CouvScott]

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/untitled.jpg

[CouvScott]

http://www.pdc.us/pdf/about/commission_meeting/2006/0913/(8)%20(Report%2006-96).pdf

...Acquisition of Blocks 49 and Block 33 air rights for affordable housing

The acquisition of Block 49 and assignment and assumption of the Block 33 air rights by PDC is required by and a precondition for execution of the Eight Amendment by the DA Parties. Collectively, these sites will provide development opportunities for the construction of more than 600 units of affordable housing. Execution of the Eight Amendment is expected to lead to the development of the North Macadam URA’s first 200 units within the next 18 months. Attached to the Resolution as Exhibit B are the proposed purchase agreement for Block 49 and the assignment and assumption agreement for the Block 33 air rights...

[zilfondel]

That's "affordable" housing, remember. Down to 80% of the median income of PDX.

[CouvScott]

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/Rossisland.jpg
Agreement - Portland's mayor accepts Robert Pamplin Jr.'s slimmed down gift of two parcels totaling about 60 acres


Thursday, October 05, 2006
ANNA GRIFFIN
Portland taxpayers soon might be the proud owners of a chunk of Ross Island, but they will not receive nearly as much of the Willamette River property as city leaders hoped and owner Robert Pamplin Jr. first offered.

Mayor Tom Potter and Pamplin, chairman and chief executive officer of Ross Island Sand & Gravel, reached a tentative agreement this week in which Pamplin will donate 45 acres on the island's western side to the city. That parcel, which hosts bald eagles, osprey, hawks and a blue heron rookery, remains untouched except for the occasional visit by kayakers, canoeists and trespassing campers.

Pamplin, one of Oregon's wealthiest people, plans to give the city another 15 acres nearby once his crews have finished a state-mandated environmental cleanup to remove soil, sediment and groundwater tainted with zinc, arsenic and other dangers, Potter said.

But Pamplin has backed off his original handshake deal with city leaders: Five years ago, he made a "take it or leave it" offer to give away the entire island, except for about 25 acres the sand and gravel company still uses. Pamplin's assistant said Wednesday that he had no comment.

"This is a good thing, in that the public will receive some important land that can be preserved and used to educate," said Travis Williams, executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper, the watchdog group. "But it certainly isn't what most people in good faith assumed as the full commitment."

Ross Island, a chain of four islands totaling almost 400 acres of land and water, sits about a mile south of downtown Portland and in the shadow of the new South Waterfront neighborhood. It's a key spot for several species of wildlife, and environmentalists say a cleaned-up Ross Island lagoon will be an important stop for young salmon to rest and feed on their trip to the ocean.

Ross Island Sand & Gravel mined and processed gravel for production of concrete on the site from the early 1920s through 2001, and Pamplin says he's spent $20 million repairing environmental damage on his property.


Katz's optimism


Five years ago, Mayor Vera Katz used her annual State of the City Address to announce that Pamplin had agreed to donate almost all of the island to the city by 2004. Katz described the deal as a cornerstone in her plan to clean the river and return it to public use.

"Imagine a restored Ross Island, with parks and open space, where the lagoon is a sanctuary for wildlife and a place where non-motorized boats can sail or row," she said in the speech, describing the island as "every bit as precious as Forest Park."
Pamplin, however, never put his commitment in writing. And during the ensuing five years, Katz's dream of a restored taxpayer-owned Ross Island became delayed and eventually downsized. City lawyers balked at Pamplin's insistence that they accept legal liability for future environmental claims on the property. Negotiators disagreed about how much money Pamplin should set aside for unforeseen cleanup costs. Reclamation of the island proved more time-consuming and contentious than anyone predicted.


Pamplin's letter


In a Sept. 27 letter to Potter, Pamplin suggested that city leaders had ignored his offer for a time.

"As you have been made aware, the Company made several overtures to the City, but those came to no avail for lack of response by the City," Pamplin wrote. "Obviously, this has become a contributing factor in any potential gift."

It's unclear whom Pamplin blames for that inattention. Katz says city negotiators, including City Commissioner Erik Sten, met consistently with Pamplin's representatives through the end of her administration. "We did everything we could, but there were so many details to work out," she said. "I guess my term ended too soon."

Potter said Pamplin wasn't referring to "since we took office." He said he did not know what had changed Pamplin's mind between 2001 and today. Frank Cable, a Pamplin lawyer, declined to elaborate on his boss's letter.

During the first 18 months of his administration, Potter left much of the communication with Pamplin to Sten, who agreed to handle things when Katz left office. But those negotiations bogged down when Pamplin insisted the city agree to accept responsibility for future environmental claims.


Earful on the offer


Earlier this year, Potter ran into Pamplin at a Volunteers of America conference and got an earful about Ross Island, according to the mayor's office. Pamplin told the mayor he was planning to withdraw his offer and preserve undisturbed portions of the island himself with no public access.

At that point, Potter became involved. He and Pamplin met one-on-one in early July and exchanged several letters outlining very different visions.
In a July 11 letter, Potter wrote that he hoped Pamplin would stick to his initial pledge -- all of the island. He wrote that the donation offered Pamplin and his family a chance to be remembered "as being as generous and as far-sighted as was the conservation of Bull Run and Forest Park, or the preservation of the waterfront with the construction of Tom McCall Park." This, the mayor wrote, was Pamplin's shot at history.

Pamplin's September letter contained a far different proposal: The city, he wrote, could have about 60 acres if Potter promised to use it only as a nature sanctuary. He also offered to donate $100,000 to the city for ivy removal. And he added a stern caveat: "This is the final discussion about a land donation . . . . This will be my final attempt at providing a donation of a portion of Ross Island to the City."


Two weeks to respond


Pamplin gave Potter two weeks to respond. Late Tuesday, the mayor sent Pamplin another letter accepting his terms and trying to put the best face on the situation by describing the 60 acres as a "significant portion" of Ross Island. He said he still hopes Pamplin will change his mind about donating more land as the environmental cleanup on the island continues.

Both Pamplin and the Portland City Council must approve any donation before it becomes official. Big questions remain. How much access, for example, will the public have to the island given Pamplin's insistence that it be kept "in its present natural state?"

On Wednesday, Potter chose to focus on the positives: If negotiations go well, Portlanders will receive a rare gift, a piece of pristine waterfront property. No matter that it's not as much as the mayor and environmentalists wanted.

"We asked for the entire property, and he said no," Potter said. "That's his right. This is the best we can get, and it's still very generous."

[Dougall5505]

thats not fair!

[cab]

We need bible man to come to the rescue. Pamplins version of Christian charity.

[MarkDaMan]

PDC warns developers about hiring
South Waterfront - Developers say they can't find qualified minority contractors to meet a 20 percent goal
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
RYAN FRANK
The Oregonian

The Portland Development Commission says developers building Portland's new South Waterfront district have failed to meet their goals to share construction work with minorities, women and small businesses.

Developers North Macadam Investors and Oregon Health & Science University agreed in 2003 to try to send at least 20 percent of the work to small firms or those owned by a minority or woman. But a study of the first six South Waterfront towers shows they've done no better than 10 percent. Minority-owned firms are faring the worst, registering less than 2 percent.

The developers and their builder, Hoffman Construction, say they've hit a wall: The Portland market doesn't have enough qualified contractors to give the work to. Given the available pool, "10 percent is pretty darn good," said Bart Eberwein, vice president at Hoffman Construction.

But Bruce Warner, the PDC's executive director, told developers in an October letter he expects better.

Warner's letter came after the City Council began to scale back its attention to major redevelopment work, such as the South Waterfront, and amid growing calls from African American leaders that the city's redevelopment agency must do more.

Among their concerns, they asked PDC to make sure minorities get their fair share of the construction work that's partially driving Portland's economy. The line among African American leaders has become: "Everybody except the brothers."

"I just don't know why they are so resistant to minority firms participating," said Faye Burch, a consultant who works on diversity in contracting and is a member of the National Association of Minority Contractors Oregon chapter.

John Jackley, a PDC executive, said South Waterfront developers -- led by Homer Williams -- agreed to a 20 percent contracting goal in 2003. At the time, it was a footnote in the $2 billion deal that opened South Waterfront for the biggest economic development project in city history.

The deal will provide about $126 million in taxpayer help to turn the former warehouse district into a garden of condo and medical office towers.

In early October, Jackley said, PDC got its first look at how well Hoffman Construction had done at hiring small, minority and women subcontractors for the first five condo towers and one OHSU building. "It wasn't consistent with promises made in the past," Jackley said.

Warner sent letters to Williams and Steve Stadum, OHSU's chief administrative officer, in mid-October to alert them to what he saw as a problem. The letters went out a month after African American leaders crowded a PDC board meeting to make a public call for improvements.

Warner followed up with several meetings with South Waterfront developers. "Bruce was very direct," Jackley said. "He said, 'You know what, you can do better.' "

But there seems to be a disagreement about that.

Williams of North Macadam Investors said: "That letter is not reflective of what the real situation out there is."

Eberwein of Hoffman Construction said: "Hoffman's take on South Waterfront is that it's mostly good news."

Small, minority and female subcontractors have accounted for $35 million worth of work in South Waterfront. No other project matches that, Eberwein said.

Besides, Eberwein says the 20 percent goal was never firm. "Let's be clear, PDC knew it would be an aspirational goal," he said.

Williams said they struggle to find enough minority contractors given the vast number of condo projects under way, and some minority firms, which tend to be smaller, struggle to afford enough insurance for big projects.

Williams and Eberwein said they try to reduce barriers for minority firms, breaking up work into smaller jobs and handling insurance for them. Williams said his partner, Dike Dame, also is recruiting high school juniors into the business. Eberwein said the developers are doing the best they can. "It'd be wrong to trash these guys," he said.

The best option, Eberwein said, is to build a bigger pool of qualified contractors through the apprenticeship programs. He said the developers have done much better at recruiting minorities and women into the workforce training program.

But James Posey, an African American subcontractor, isn't convinced things are getting better. He said Hoffman sees minority contracting as "social penitence to the community rather than good business." Posey called Warner's letter the most powerful response he's seen on the issue in more than two decades. But "the question is whether or not there will be any teeth in that letter," Posey said.

The 2003 South Waterfront deal doesn't give the PDC authority to force changes. But Jackley said they've requested documents that prove Hoffman Construction made a good faith effort to recruit minority contractors.

The PDC board plans a public hearing on the issue Dec. 6.

For more about Portland politics, visit The Oregonian's City Hall blog at portlandcityhall.blogs.oregonlive.com. Ryan Frank: 503-221-8564; ryanfrank@news.oregonian.com.

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1164169518217130.xml&coll=7

[MarkDaMan]

Building the dreams that others will buy
Thursday, December 21, 2006
By Spencer Heinz
The Oregonian

Towers of glass and steel rise from the earth like magic, but nothing is magic. These are the South Waterfront's emerging condo villages, and millions of dollars raise them up on the shoulders of workers in the trades.

Hundreds of men and women, from glaziers to ironworkers, form a temporary community that ebbs between here and their homes that range from Beaverton to Hood River to the inner city itself.

For those who care to imagine how much work by how many it takes, one way to begin is to wend through the buzz and screech of construction, beneath the great tram tower that looms like a being from "The War of the Worlds," and into the condo-sales Discovery Center showroom marked by a giant orange asterisk.

"You are here," say words on the wall.

Inside stands a room-size scale model of Portland's westside riverbank with formations of buildings either built or still imagined.

"The River Blocks is as much an address as a state of mind," orange words say, but someone has to build it. This is a $2 billion job on 130 acres, one of the nation's bigger urban developments. This crusade of hammers and hope involves everyone from workers on the ground to salesmen such as Sean Z. Becker, a broker with Realty Trust who considers how each person has a hand in making it real.

"Wow," Becker recalls a concrete worker exclaiming during a trip to the showroom. "So that's what it'll look like."

A big-picture view comes from two brothers on the job, Blair Bubenik, vice president of estimating for the South Waterfront prime contractor of Hoffman Construction Co., and Cary Bubenik, a Hoffman senior project manager. They serve as communicators between construction workers and the project's many owners -- the hundreds of condominium buyers headed into their vertical homes.

Customer service counts. The project has brought in consultants from service-savvy businesses such Les Schwab Tire Centers and Ritz-Carlton Hotels. The ethic extends, the brothers say, from fixing a condo light switch to limiting construction noise, when possible, near occupied units.

"It's a neighborhood now," Blair says.

They head into the cold, where workers running 80,000-pound machines build the dreams that brokers sell. They heave the earth into other shapes. Backing-up warning beeps fill the air. A tower crane glows a purplish pink as residents settle in.

About 7 a.m. in rain or wind or whatever, workers by the hundreds maneuver for parking spots and start their day. The topography keeps changing, so their places move from here to there.

These days by 7:30 a.m., they are working on primarily three condo towers -- the John Ross, Atwater Place and the 3720 Building. The jobs are desirable, pulling down $20 to $40 an hour. Providing many more of them for businesses owned by minorities and women continues to be the topic of talks among the city, the prime contractor, the developers and the workers.

They show up as waves of carpenters, drywallers, tile setters, stonemasons, electricians, plumbers, glaziers, laborers, cement finishers, ironworkers, pipe fitters, pile bucks, equipment operators, electricians, sheet metal workers and more.

Over at the 3720 Building, which is in the foundation and excavation phase, they include men such as Arthur Flores, 41, of Tigard, drilling as an operating engineer apprentice for Scheffler Northwest; Chris Wrench, 46, pile bucks crew foreman with Scheffler who commutes weekly between here and Bend; Rod Runkle, 58, of Orchards, Wash., a John L. Jersey & Son laborer building a slab for the first level of a parking garage; and Troy Pennock, 39, of Milwaukie, a Hoffman Structures carpenter encasing the conduits that will feed electrical wire for a fire-sprinkler system.

"The only thing that makes it all work is mutual respect for each others' jobs," says Adam Bonner, Hoffman Construction's 3720 project superintendent. "They're coming from all over, but they've all got to get along."

That extends to the nearby showroom floor.

"Whether you're pouring the concrete or selling the condos, I think everyone's excited about it," says Becker the broker.

"We wouldn't be doing this," he adds, "if they weren't doing that."

Spencer Heinz: 503-221-8072; spencerheinz@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/portland_news/1166054122106380.xml&coll=7

[tworivers]

Good to hear some 3720 news. This time next year it should be substantially out of the ground, maybe even close to topped out?

I'd like to hear some news on the status of the other blocks in the vicinity, especially the riverfront blocks on either side of Meriwether/Atwater, the Alexan, and the one north of the John Ross rumored to be "senior living".

[westsider]

It seems like Atwater got out of the ground much quicker than 3720 is on pace for. Have they even started site prep for the Alexan?

[MarkDaMan]

2006 proves a watershed year for South Waterfront activity
Portland Business Journal - January 26, 2007
by Wendy Culverwell
Business Journal staff writer

Construction workers, real estate agents, architects and publicists got welcome company at the South Waterfront in 2006: After years of planning and construction, Portland's newest urban neighborhood welcomed permanent residents and workers as construction cranes gave way to moving vans at the first two buildings.

The Meriwether Condominiums, two towers with a total of 245 residential units, opened first. The spring opening brought the first permanent residents to what had been a noisy, muddy construction zone. The project cost $121 million to build and like the other buildings in the 38-acre South Waterfront neighborhood, was developed by a team led by Portland's prolific Gerding/Edlen Development Co. LLC.

Oregon Health & Science University's 400,000-square-foot Center for Health & Healing opened in late 2006. The 16-story building sits at the district's northern edge.

The center has eight levels of hospital space for medical practices, clinics and surgery. Three floors contain health and wellness center, including a four-lane lap pool, and four are dedicated to education and research, with laboratory space for OHSU's biomedical engineering program.

Three floors of parking and a level of retail space round out the building -- designed by GBD Architects Inc. to be among the greenest new buildings in the land. It is expected to receive one of the top environmental designations from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

Hoffman Construction Co. was the contractor, Gerding/Edlen managed the project.

A green new building is one thing; a shiny new way to get around is another.

To most Portlanders who don't have a reason to visit South Waterfront on a regular basis, 2006 stands out for introducing a new mode of transportation to Portland's already impressive repertoire. We speak, of course, of the spanking new tram.

OHSU employees and soon, the public as well, can pop between the university's hilltop campus on Marquam Hill and the Portland waterfront via two shiny, pill-shaped carriages that travel along cables strung on poles.

The university, private developers and the city of Portland shared unequally in the $57 million construction cost. The fare to users remains undecided -- the city proposed a $4 round-trip fare to cover the cost to operate the system, but is now weighing the need to cover costs against public policy issues such as, does it want people to actually ride the tram.

Last but not least, the tram isn't the only locomotion in town. The Portland Streetcar added South Waterfront -- its sixth neighborhood -- to its circuit in October. The streetcar line extends to the tram station on the northern side of OHSU's new building. Eventually, it will loop south to the residential portions of the neighborhood.

Alas, South Waterfront is not part of TriMet's fareless zone in downtown, so a Streetcar ride will set riders back $1.70.

The year 2006 saw two other residential towers get started -- 3720 and Atwater Place both saw construction start. The 3720 will be a 20-story tower with 331 units. The $160 million project is set to open a year from August. Atwater Place too got started. It will have 212 units on 23 stories and has a construction cost of $140 million.

The John Ross, the 31-story elliptical tower with 342 units, got started in late 2005, but the $130 million condominium project saw a substantial amount of work completed in 2006. It should be ready to welcome residents this spring.

wculverwell@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3415

http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2007/01/29/focus7.html?t=printable

[PacificNW]

3720=20 story?? I thought it was going to be in the 30-31 range..

[MarkDaMan]

-The 3720 will be a 20-story tower with 331 units

-Atwater Place will have 212 units on 23 stories

-The John Ross, the 31-story elliptical tower with 342 units

Journalism at it's best, unless it is extremely squat, it is a 30 story tower....

[pdxman]

3720 would look awful if it were only 20 stories...the renderings make it look like 30 stories so lets hope this is just a journalism feaux-pax

[MarkDaMan]

^it is

[pdxstreetcar]

yeah isnt 3720 in that second row back from the river so it would be in the 325 ft height limit? the riverfront blocks i believe are in the 20 story range.

[65MAX]

The 3720 will be exactly the same height as the John Ross, 325'.
Reporters are frequently wrong, nothing new there.

[65MAX]

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/187/373026063_d636fe64ff.jpg?v=0

This one looks like "War of the Worlds". Very cool.... :tup:

[Dougall5505]

The Oregon Sports Authority Foundation’s Sportlandia dinner and sports auction, presented by Gerding Edlen Development, is scheduled for the evening of February 9, 2007 at South Waterfront’s OHSU Center for Health and Healing. The sold out event is the Northwest’s largest sports auction, featuring once-in-a-lifetime trips, sports memorabilia and much more. Proceeds provide underserved youth throughout Oregon with the chance to participate in a variety of sports activities.

OregonLive.com Sportlandia Contest
Enter the OregonLive.com Sportlandia contest to predict the winning bid of the Ted Williams autographed baseball and Fenway Park panorama — the contest winner receives Bill Walton’s autographed autobiography and a basketball autographed by Clyde Drexler!

Sportlandia Details
The Sportlandia reception begins on the main floor of the OHSU Center for Health and Healing at 6:00 p.m. The dinner and auction follow at 7:30 p.m. on the second floor. Recommended dress is business attire.

Directions to Sportlandia at the OHSU Center for Health and Healing

Partial List of Oral Auction Items
1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team Autographed Jersey
2007 NBA All-Star Game Trip
2008 Beijing Olympics Trip
Australian Open Tennis Trip
Rose Bowl Trip
French Open Tennis Trip
Hawaiian Vacation
LeBron James Autographed Jersey
Luxury Suite for Oregon-CAL Football
Mazatlan Vacation
Mickey Mantle Autographed Baseball
New York Yankees Trip
Notre Dame-USC College Football Trip
Reggie Bush Autographed Jersey
Ted Williams Autographed Baseball
Tiger Woods Authographed Photo
U.S. Open Tennis Trip
Wimbledon Trip

[mcbaby]

^I also heard the drainage systems in the South Waterfront's parking garages were complex to build. Even though Homer literally raised the earth, most of SoWa was covered in water in the '96 floods so they are required to build complex pumping systems in case of flooding.

i remember those floods. i am still surprised that they haven't invested in a seawall there or at least raised the gradient. no one talks about the floods. when it happens again there will be some very upset millionaires and a lot of damage.

[MarkDaMan]

^they wouldn't have gotten banks to finance the construction, the PDC to build roads, OHSU's tram, etc. etc. if they weren't sure they had taken care of the flooding problem for the most part. It would take an 100-year flood to now rise over the banks and into the district...since the last one was in '96, I guess the millionaires are good until at least 2096...just kidding...with global warming, who knows if we will even have a river in 2096.

The seawall idea was thrown out because look at what the seawall did to downtown's connection with the river. It's terrible for the creatures that live in the river, terrible for humans that should connect with the river, and makes the view from the east side a little less attractive with a WWII looking concrete barrier rising from the banks of the Willamette. In fact, there is a waterfront park renovation plan that will try and reconnect downtown to the river, but mostly through catwalks over the river and such.

From my understanding, at least from the people trying to sell me a place at the discovery center, SoWa doesn't have anything to worry about when it comes to flooding.

[zilfondel]

i remember those floods. i am still surprised that they haven't invested in a seawall there or at least raised the gradient. no one talks about the floods. when it happens again there will be some very upset millionaires and a lot of damage.

They did, they dumped tons of dirt down there to raise the ground level so it won't flood. Also, seawalls hurt salmon and the environment. They're going to leave it natural.

[mcbaby]

They did, they dumped tons of dirt down there to raise the ground level so it won't flood. Also, seawalls hurt salmon and the environment. They're going to leave it natural.


i definately knew that they wanted that portion to have a restored riverbank ecosystem but was curious if there was to be a height barrier between the development and riverbank in case of one of those freak floods. but you answered my questions. thanks. :)

[mcbaby]

^

The seawall .... "makes the view from the east side a little less attractive with a WWII looking concrete barrier rising from the banks of the Willamette".



I disagree, i like waterfront park and it's seawall as is. there are many places to aproach the river such as riverplace and the esplanade. i'm not advocating seawalls throughout the whole of downtown but the section on tom mccall waterfront park is nice and attractive for what it is. it's reminiscent of seawalls in other european cities such as london (not totally) and it has a historic and impressive quality as well as practical - the fleet has somewhere to park every spring and it protected downtown from flooding in 96.

there are many places on either side of the willamette as well as ross island that could benefit from riverbank restoration and some beautification but i think the seawall is cool.

[Dougall5505]

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1172888711187850.xml&coll=7
For crane operator, job's an adrenaline lift
"It's like playing a giant video game with the joysticks"
Monday, March 05, 2007
TED SICKINGER
It took time, but J.J. Sisson eventually worked his way all the way up the ladder at Hoffman Construction Co. At present, that's a 325-foot daily climb to his perch operating the tallest tower crane at Portland's South Waterfront.

It's not for the fainthearted.

There's the daily climb -- rain, sleet or shine. Once he arrives at the office, he's alone, all day, in a noisy cab that can be frigidly cold or baking hot, depending on the season, and sways like a carnival ride in heavy weather.
"It can get scary," Sisson said. "When the wind gets up to 60, I want to be on the ground."

Usually, anything more than 35 mph gusts put Sisson into "weathervane mode," swinging with the wind. Even in the calmest conditions, it's exacting, high-stress work.

High-rise construction is crane dependent. Whether he's "flying" cement, rebar, girders or 6,000-pound wall panels, he has to be smooth and efficient. Hand-eye coordination is a prerequisite, though Sisson is often operating blind, relying on his deft touch at the controls and radioed instructions from the ground. When the schedule is tight, days can stretch from well before dawn until after dark.

"Once you get good at it, it's like playing a giant video game with the joysticks," Sisson said. But "when you got all these guys moving right under your hook, there's no room for mistakes."

Accidents do happen -- in November, a 210-foot tall construction crane toppled over in Bellevue -- so Sisson spends plenty of time inspecting his rig.

"I'm the one who has to ride it down," he said, "and I don't want to do that."

An Oklahoma native, Sisson worked as a roughneck on an oil rig in Oklahoma from the age of 16 before moving offshore at 21. When oil patch jobs dried up in the late '80s, he moved to a shipyard in Portland.

After jumping to Hoffman Construction in 1996, he started out on the ground level as a carpenter, then worked his way though a succession of jobs operating forklifts, elevators and boom trucks. After bugging his bosses, networking with the crane operators, and getting the necessary training and certification, he finally got his shot to operate the big rig.

His wife and friends sometimes think he's nuts. But he loves the work.

"I get bored easily," Sisson said. "I've always had intense jobs. I need something that's got adrenaline to it."

Ted Sickinger: 503-221-8505; tedsickinger@news.oregonian.com

[MarkDaMan]

Yesterday I was informed by a forumer that Block 46 is not Prometheus's first project, in fact Prometheus doesn't even own 46. It was owned by Homer but it might be the one BrG is talking about being revised, I guess we will find out...

Anyway, I was curious as to what Prometheus was doing so I e-mail them and asked. They actually responded within 24 hours...here you go...

Mark:
Your e-mail address was forwarded to me by the Prometheus corporate offices in the Bay Area. I'm the project manager for their properties in the South Waterfront.
To date, we have nothing under construction. Block 41 is on hold. The project still needs to go thru design review and we do not have any immediate plans for starting construction on Block 41. We have begun schematic design on Blocks 42 and 45a.
So, the long and the short of it is that we have nothing under construction currently. The earliest date when we would start construction would be in the summer of 2008 with a late 2010 completion date.
If you have any other questions, please e-mail me or call my office at 503-281-1911.

Ellen Brown
Project Manager
Prometheus Real Estate Group
cell: 503-961-3000
ellenbrown@stpaultel.com

[pdxtraveler]

How disappointing!

[MarkDaMan]

^eh, not really, if they begin their first building in summer 2008, it will be around the same time the Mirabella rises and a few months before 3720 is finished.

[pdxman]

http://wddcorp.com/projects/siteplans/south_waterfront.pdf

[MarkDaMan]

Tomorrow or Sunday I will be able to post an image of Block 41...stay tuned!

[pdxman]

A rendering? Sweeeeet....

[MarkDaMan]

as promised...
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/441505507_01be423fcf.jpg
I'll try and get a better upload later this week...

[MarkDaMan]

^and before anyone trashes it. The conceptual image to the left, that was bleached out in the scan, actually looks quite good with the other towers.

[zilfondel]

thats no pointee... :(

[westsider]

Not too bad, is that a 250'?

[Dougall5505]

I like it although I would rather see whats happening with block 37 that initial render for 37 looked really interesting

[pdxskyline]

Looks interesting so far. Could be taller or skinnier, but I'll reserve my final judgement for when Mark gets a better scan up. Context is likely key here. Besides, the bulky buildings gotta go somewhere, and no better place than SOWA, as they've pretty much demolished the NIMBY opposition around it.

[CouvScott]

These are old, but just didn't want this thread to die...
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/MVC-850F.jpg
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/MVC-847F.jpg
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/sowanc3d1.jpg
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/sowanc3d3.jpg
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/sowanc3d2.jpg

[MarkDaMan]

damn, I forgot about the scan. I haven't gotten a chance to try and make a better conversion of the PDF to post here. If anyone want's to PM me with their e-mail, I can send you the PDF and let you dink around with it and post a better image.

[CouvScott]

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/PromethiusBlock41b.jpg
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/PromethiusBlock41a.jpg

[MarkDaMan]

^aaahaaa...Thanks!

[CouvScott]

No problem

[Dougall5505]

thanks for posting that it looks nice i count 25 floors

[sirsimon]

Is this the one they expect to start construction on in Summer of 08?

[PeterSmith]

I was forced to revive my SSP account since all the Portland action takes place on this forum rather than SSC. This is the first I've seen those SoWa rengerings posted by CouvScott. They look phenomenal. I could stare at those all day. Are each of those towers proposed or are some of them simply conceptual?

[Dougall5505]

I think they are conceptual

[Drew-Ski]

I like it although I would rather see whats happening with block 37 that initial render for 37 looked really interesting

I must have missed the rendering of Block 37 somewhere.....can you re-post??? Secondly, is there any update on Block 41. The first posting by MarkdaMan is quoted as saying the project is on hold. Are there any renderings of Block 42 and 45a?

[pdxman]

Now that you can see the renderings of Block 41, i don't think it looks that bad. Its better than the alexan and most other blobs that get built.

[MarkDaMan]

Secondly, is there any update on Block 41. The first posting by MarkdaMan is quoted as saying the project is on hold. Are there any renderings of Block 42 and 45a?

To my knowledge what I posted at the top of the thread was their current plans as of only 4 weeks ago. In a slow market I doubt anything much has happened, especially since Prometheus purchased an apartment tower next to the KOIN Tower and is starting upgrades. The lady from the company did say in a follow up e-mail that the only renderings available right now for public consumption was the one forwarded and posted here.

[MarkDaMan]

Maybe there will be enough going on in SoWa to keep this thread alive? In any case, I didn't know where to stick this story.

Wind not a blow to South Waterfront buildings
Daily Journal of Commerce
by Alison Ryan
05/02/2007


The Willamette River isn’t Lake Michigan – and South Waterfront isn’t Chicago’s wind-whipping lakefront. But builders are still watching the wind factor as the growing district takes shape.

In some cities, watching the wind is a bigger part of building. The city of Toronto, for example, can require pedestrian-level wind studies for projects of more than six stories in some parts of the city. Studies evaluate pedestrian comfort during typical urban space activities – like sitting and walking – based on factors like wind force and wind chill.

But wind isn’t a factor in Portland’s review process for the South Waterfront District, Troy Doss, a city planner, said. An initial study of the North Macadam greenway microclimate, completed in 2000 by a University of Oregon team, showed that the way the wind blows through the district, as well as the way the streets are laid out, mostly shield South Waterfront from wind’s effects.

“The area tends to be more accommodating, in regard to the negative impact of wind,” Doss said. “But the proof will be in the pudding, when we see the district more built out.”

Wind isn’t often an issue in Portland. Monthly wind averages, collected since 1948, range between 6.5 and 9.9 miles per hour with an annual average of 7.9 miles per hour, according to 2005 National Climatic Data Center data. And according to Jan Curtis, a climatologist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s National Water and Climate Center in Portland, the city’s wind levels have been steady for at least the past 15 years.

Though architects and engineers consider wind effects, he said, studies would “generally not” make sense as a widespread requirement for Portland. The city is mostly established, he said, and heavy winds are fairly atypical in Portland and most U.S. cities.

“It’s generally something we kind of live with,” he said.

But it’s something that building teams are looking at anyway. As Oregon Health & Science University buildings, condominiums and other planned South Waterfront projects rise, the dynamic of the district will change. Both, developers say, in terms of urban life and in terms of how the wind moves through the area.

Planning the Center for Health & Healing, said Dennis Wilde, principal at Gerding Edlen Development Co., meant a computational fluid dynamics study – which involved computer modeling of wind – of the area by Arizona State University. Potential for wind turbines was explored, he said, as well as the dynamics created by the high-rise building. And the center, as the district’s first tall building, is experiencing some wind problems.

“It’s a huge issue for short periods of time,” he said. “But as other buildings go in and the neighborhood matures, those wind characteristics are going to change significantly.”

Designers for the Mirabella, a 30-story senior housing tower planned for South Waterfront, will study wind, a team from Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects told the Portland Design Commission on April 19.

Investigation into wind has also been a part of the process for project such as the John Ross Condominiums. The design team, TVA Architects principal Robert Thompson said, analyzed wind patterns as part of the John Ross design process – and the final design for the tower nods to the wind, too.

“The John Ross is an elliptical tower, so it’s far more aerodynamic than a rectangle or a square,” he said. “This allows the wind to pass smoothly by the building, creating very little turbulence as it goes by.”

Working on early South Waterfront projects means, Thompson said, that teams don’t have the luxury of factoring to-come projects into their work. But one thing the podium-tower design of some of the district’s first buildings, such as the Atwater and the Meriwether, do is create a street-level buffer that tower-only designs don’t have, he said.

Although the district’s wind dynamic will change as new projects wrap, South Waterfront’s well-positioned for wind. The street grid is oriented due north. Regulations focused on “permeability,” or keeping views of Mount Hood and the river within the district, bar facades wider than 125 feet on the north and south block sides, meaning buildings’ longer sides have to be oriented east and west. The district’s natural orientation doesn’t create wind tunnels, Doss said, but it does create a setup that’s good for harnessing solar energy.

“On balance, we’re in the black in the district more than anything else,” he said.

Gerding Edlen has seized solar’s potential, most notably through the photovoltaic system on the Center for Health & Healing. Designers left space, too, Wilde said, for wind turbines on the roof of the center, should technology for grabbing low-velocity wind appear on the market. But for now, he said, the same easy wind that makes the district a good place to build doesn’t offer a good return on turbine investment.

“We didn’t find consistent enough winds,” he said, “to justify the expense.”
http://www.djc-or.com/viewStory.cfm?recid=29363&userID=1

[MarkDaMan]

check out this site plan by Williams and Dame (the link has been posted before)

http://www.wddcorp.com/projects/siteplans/south_waterfront.pdf

Does anyone else notice that Block 46 has a different footprint, apparently 65' height limits, and now says Simpson Housing Apartments under the Block 46 identifier?

[BrG]

Block 45 is in design process as well.

[Dougall5505]

I wonder if the design has changed. now all the delays make sense

[Dougall5505]

do we have a render of block 45?

[BrG]

Multiple design schemes are being studied and evaluated...so no, not yet. :)

[pdxman]

check out this site plan by Williams and Dame (the link has been posted before)

http://www.wddcorp.com/projects/siteplans/south_waterfront.pdf

Does anyone else notice that Block 46 has a different footprint, apparently 65' height limits, and now says Simpson Housing Apartments under the Block 46 identifier?
^^^I wondered that too when i first saw the revised site plan. I'm hoping its just the height for the smaller building that was a part of the original plan and that the tower will still be built.

[sopdx]

Does anyone have any insight on what's going on with Zidell?

[Drew-Ski]

Does anyone have any insight on what's going on with Zidell?

I would like to see several highrise office towers on that site. The SOWA's primary focus thus far seems to be residential. What a spectaculiar location to put speculative luxurious office space and begin a recruting campaigne for new corporations. With so many amenities available, the possibilty of several large Corps setting up shop does not seem far fetched........

[MarkDaMan]

Does anyone have any insight on what's going on with Zidell?

Zidell has a M37 claim pending but have put any action on it on hold while they negotiate with the city and OHSU. Zidell has indicated they are open to almost any possibility including land swaps but have the M37 claim as 'insurance' if they determine none of the deals being negotiated are good enough. Currently there are no immediate plans for development but a potential M37 claim could eliminate any FAR or height limits.

[BrG]

^^^I wondered that too when i first saw the revised site plan. I'm hoping its just the height for the smaller building that was a part of the original plan and that the tower will still be built.

The B46 project is completely different now. No towers. WDD sold the site to Simpson Housing. New design should be made public relatively soon.

Low rise apartment buildings, modern in design.

[Dougall5505]

well darn I hope it looks good

[CouvScott]

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/couvttocs/block49.jpg

[MarkDaMan]

^that is the affordable housing project?

from amaa.com
http://www.amaa.com/_uploads/photo/project/141_lg1_Block-49_01.jpg

http://www.amaa.com/_uploads/photo/project/141_lg2_Block-49_02.jpg

[CouvScott]

The images on the pre ap agenda don't look as nice as your image though, but they do give insight that it will have underground and surface parking. The surface parking will all be in the courtyard created by the buildings.