South Waterfront News

[RED_PDXer]

Originally Posted by PDXDENSITY

How can it politically be brought back onto the table? Referendum? State legislature? City council?

It was a constitutional amendment, so another vote of the people I presume. It was completely funded by the Oregon Association of Realtors, and their parent organization - the National Association of Realtors. It passed with 59% of the vote, despite the fact that there was already a state law prohibiting local jurisdictions from enacting such a tax. Yet another reason to dislike realtors in my book.

[PDXDENSITY]

Originally Posted by RED_PDXer

It was a constitutional amendment, so another vote of the people I presume. It was completely funded by the Oregon Association of Realtors, and their parent organization - the National Association of Realtors. It passed with 59% of the vote, despite the fact that there was already a state law prohibiting local jurisdictions from enacting such a tax. Yet another reason to dislike realtors in my book.

Slimy. They're encouraging blight of properties with this crap.

[maccoinnich]

Pre-Application Conference [PDF] for Block 41, which is the Prometheus property @ SW Lane & River Parkway:

Pre-Application Conference to discuss a Type III Design Review for proposed new 6-story mixed-use building with approx. 3500 square feet of Retail, 200 market-rate apartments and 187 below-grade parking spaces. The new building will be located on a separate lot. The applicant will be submitting a separate Land Division application to divide the large site into 6 lots (discussed at Early Assistance Appt -EA 15-11950).

[PDXDENSITY]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

Pre-Application Conference [PDF] for Block 41, which is the Prometheus property @ SW Lane & River Parkway:

No affordable housing, and it's a squat box wasting prime waterfront. What a waste. There needs to be a push for affordability in sowa.

[MarkDaMan]

I can't believe with such prime real estate that they aren't thinking AAT big or bigger. So disappointing.

[Abide]

Originally Posted by MarkDaMan

I can't believe with such prime real estate that they aren't thinking AAT big or bigger. So disappointing.

Totally. The market's hot and this site is right on the friggin river!

[maccoinnich]

Is South Waterfront Portland's Next Great Neighborhood?



One day last October, a pop-up tent in South Waterfront sold dahlias for $3 a stem. The tent was unstaffed, as was an adjacent full riverfront block planted with Halloween pumpkins. The honor system seemed perfectly suited to SW Curry Street’s mix of humanity that afternoon: runners with dogs in tow, elderly strollers, med students in scrubs catching some midday sun. Not that much sun reached the street. The skyscrapers of South Waterfront, a neighborhood that looks like a pocket metropolis along the Willamette River, kept the sidewalk in perpetual twilight, like the urban canyons of Manhattan and Vancouver, British Columbia. But a pumpkin field amid the glass-skinned high-rises suggested an all-Portland ethos—a hybrid of soil and steel, industry and urban pioneering.

South Waterfront first rose about a decade ago. The city, private developers, and Oregon Health & Science University, Portland’s largest employer, assembled a boggling combination of funding, zoning, ambition, and salesmanship to create a new high-rise neighborhood on old industrial land on the Willamette’s western bank. They wanted to emulate high-density urban districts elsewhere and provide growing room for OHSU, which aims to become one of the nation’s major research facilities.

The vision came packaged with aspirational trappings—luxury senior living, commanding penthouses—and the transformation proved both dramatic and controversial. Were glass towers and a space-pod tram to OHSU’s hilltop headquarters evolutionary, or antithetical to Portland’s modest psycho-geography? Or should these old questions even be asked of a new neighborhood?

...continues at Portland Monthly.

[maccoinnich]

South Waterfront condo market reaches a boiling point (Photos)



Sean Becker was in the middle of the South Waterfront action during the heady days of 2004.

Back then, Becker was a broker with Realty Trust who was selling condominiums in some of the burgeoning neighborhood’s new towers left and right: the Meriwether, the John Ross, the Atwater and others.

But Becker was also there a few years later when the condo spigot shut off and business all but dried up.

....

“The market is ripe for a new condo project,” Becker said. “Without a doubt the demand from buyers is here. Whether the appetite is here for developers or not, that’s a different story.”

...continues at the Portland Business Journal.

[tworivers]

^^^ That article makes me wonder how pre-sales are going at the Cosmopolitan.

[pdxtraveler]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

...continues at Portland Monthly.

A couple notes on this article.

1st of all I want to be Matt French! lol! Hard job traveling the world to get ideas from riverfront European cities. Oh to spend my work days in Prague, Vienna, Budapest... LOL!

2nd I was a bit disappointed in his low slung campus comment. I guess not too, surprised as I had kind of seen that in their renderings. He says it is the new way. I kind of think it is the late 90s-00s way and that workers wanted to be back in the core of the city. I do get that he is combining the urban with the "campus" thing, but still a bit disappointed in that vision.

But really can't wait to see how they continue the things that I really appreciate with the Emery!

[innovativethinking]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

...continues at the Portland Business Journal.

For god sakes why aren't we seeing more 30 plus story towers being built then? Arguably numbers are showing even better showings than they were during the hey days of southwater front rising up but why not now?

[cronked]

Originally Posted by pdxtraveler

A couple notes on this article.

1st of all I want to be Matt French! lol! Hard job traveling the world to get ideas from riverfront European cities. Oh to spend my work days in Prague, Vienna, Budapest... LOL!

2nd I was a bit disappointed in his low slung campus comment. I guess not too, surprised as I had kind of seen that in their renderings. He says it is the new way. I kind of think it is the late 90s-00s way and that workers wanted to be back in the core of the city. I do get that he is combining the urban with the "campus" thing, but still a bit disappointed in that vision.

But really can't wait to see how they continue the things that I really appreciate with the Emery!

I feel like the description of "...long and low, along the campus model that tech companies have used..." is just a positive spin on "no one is willing to finance a 30 story project"

[maccoinnich]

Originally Posted by pdxtraveler

1st of all I want to be Matt French! lol! Hard job traveling the world to get ideas from riverfront European cities. Oh to spend my work days in Prague, Vienna, Budapest... LOL!!

No kidding. Sometimes for work I get to go to Oregon City.

[NMH]

Per the parks dept website, South Waterfront Greenway is set to open May 14.

Portland Parks & Recreation is excited to announce the Greenway Central District fences are coming down on May 14! To celebrate the completion of the new park, a Grand Opening Celebration is planned for Saturday, June 27 – SAVE THE DATE!

[maccoinnich]

[maccoinnich]

[maccoinnich]

GBD Architects have requested Design Advice for South Waterfront Block 41:

Design Advice Request for new apartment building

[58rhodes]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

GBD Architects have requested Design Advice for South Waterfront Block 41:

Hi Rise I presume?

[maccoinnich]

Nope.

[Sioux612]

Times sure have changed.

Pre-2008 this was projected to be a high-rise district.

We now have cheap low-rise building surrounding a cluster of towers.

It's kinda turning into the Pearl District.

Zidell has potential IMO. Their low-rise is high quality. Outside the Yards, SoWa is meh.