Quote:
Originally Posted by AcmeGreg
Can someone explain to me why the North Pearl and South Waterfront seem to be stealing each other's zeitgeist? Cosmopolitan, NV, Vista and now this project all seem better suited for SW, at least as originally envisioned. Remember? Why, it was going to become a veritable forest of towers! A mini-Vancouver of sorts. Post-recession it's nothing but a sea of 8-storey apartment warehouses down there while the Pearl continues to go tall(er). What's up (or not) with that?
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The ORIGINAL plan for the South Waterfront came about when Prometheus in the late 90s/early00s (whom has held their land for 20ish years now) wanted to build a lower-rise than Riverplace (pre-Strand) gated apartment community. Along with OHSU exploring options to move their campus to Hillsboro, the CoP planners were seeing the explosive early growth in the Pearl and were determined to recreate the success in the "North Macadam" district and keep Portland's largest employer in the city.
The plan was for a vast OHSU medical campus based around lower rise buildings 4 to 15 floors from the Marquam to the Old Spaghetti. To connect to the upper campus there were two main options, from what I remember. A tunnel with moving walkways to elevators and a tram.
During the frothy condo craze...that crashed the housing market years later...the main developers, Gerding and Homer to name a few, decided to cash in, go bigger and bolder than originally planned and taller than anything built in the Pearl at that point. They lobbied the city to upzone the district which was highly contested by Lair Hill but eventually passed with some conditions which helped fund the Willamette path.
The market crashed, some developers turned over their point towers to the banks and condos were auctioned on the cheap. Others were turned into apartments.
The pre-crash South Waterfront dreams excited me too, however the district is turning out so much better than originally conceived, IMHO.