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Originally Posted by ORNative
I did not catch that Holst would be the architects. I encourage everyone to go to their website and look at their portfolio. Very impressive, very northwest. Ups the excitement just that much - can't wait to see what they propose. The trees of Hollady Park will make such a great backdrop to this development, and the north / south views will be protected by the gulch and mall for a very long time, if not in perpetuity.
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I for one certainly hope we don't "preserve" the north views in perpetuity. There are, at the very least, lots of surface lots that can become high rise housing and mixed use office and retail. Once they start recouping money by developing the parking lots (as they seem to be doing with the movie theater) they can reassess if they want to demolish the super block behemoth of the mall.
I think we are witnessing a strategic investment in the area that involves an understanding that malls are dying. Eventually, I hope this whole area is cosumed by mid rise and high rise buildings with a vibrant and narrow street life for transit and human modes. Lots of homage to fine grain development while stepping back on huge squares (they're already happening) will be an important part.
My only concern is the mention of how much parking will be included. Is this being induced by zoning? Or is the developer deciding this? We need to tell them to kill off a lot of that parking to encourage other modes. ALL these developments are going in near MAX, streetcar, bike, ped, and central city. They don't need so many car stalls.
I'm excited, even if the parking is fumbled. The Lloyd is on it's way to becoming a second downtown. I am hoping there is a continued push to get Gateway/205 to start jumping because it is at the nexus of the green, blue, and red lines.
This bodes well for Portland. I think peacemeal development, with ADUs and tiny house can consume some of the need for density in our old bungalow suburbs. Portland is going to become sort of a ring, with tendrils of mid density along corridors with hopefully streetcars/MAX in the future.
The goal should be to push density in places that aren't considered terribly historic. East Portland could become a very dense and desired location while also maintaining affordability. So could Clackamas.
We need to resist the desire to expand any highway infrastructure, and only increase density and beef up transit/bike/ped infrastructure to compensate. Cars must pay their way in higher gas tax/mile traveled tax/tolls, anything. They don't pay enough to compensate the lifestyle of sprawl they are tied to.
We must not expand the urban growth boundary. This is how we will become world class.
These are interesting first steps in the Lloyd district! Any thoughts on them potentially systematically killing off the mall in a controlled way? I think it's going to become something very interesting and less super-blocky, soon.
Hooray!
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