Old Town/Chinatown News

[bvpcvm]

Regardless of what I said above about the Galleria being a good spot for the market, one of the original locations for the public market was under the Burnside bridge, with Saturday market also under the bridge, but in the park. It makes a lot of sense to me, since you'd have activity under the bridge every day, which should make the area less frightening to suburbanites and Saturday market basically becomes an extension of the daily market. If they're not going to put the market there, then I don't understand why they're still talking about moving Saturday market. Is it because Mercy Corps eventually hopes to redevelop the lot around their new building?

Re: the train station, I can't imagine that the city would be willing to spend the millions to build a train station at (under, right?) the MC. When I read about the station moving to the east side I assumed they were talking about a platform somewhere along SE 3rd with a little ticket office and empty waiting room. OK, maybe not quite *that* Houstonesque, but close.

[Drmyeyes]

I walked by the Galleria tonight after Jeffrey Kovel's lecture at the U of O arc center. I wonder why it doesn't do better. Maybe that area only has so much energy to go around. The cooking school's presence has helped out a lot. Maybe the galleria could expand on the culinary theme with a cooking supply store, classes for the public, making it a culinary centre. But you wouldn't want to steal customers away from those successful utencil/classes stores over in the pearl.

The building isn't fancy, like the M&F or some of its neighbors. It has those horizontally rectangular windows rather than vice versa like the aforementioned, giving it a more modern feel. That area is going to get even quieter when the fur store leaves, thanks to demonstrator harrassment (and Schumacher idiocy) and when Carl Greve moves to Broadway.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by pdxman

I actually think having the train station moved to the east side would be a great idea...it would speed up the transfer thru portland on amtrak and maybe could end up being a transportation hub for amtrak, light rail, street car and maybe commuter rail. Plus, it would keep the beloved MC intact and used. I also would love to see the realization of a public market in portland but i don't why you have to get rid of the saturday market to do so. why not combine the two?

I don't think the speed of tranfer through Portland has anything to do with the current location of Union Station. All trains seem like they cross over the steel bridge regardless if they are south or north bound. As far as Old Town is concerned, I think its inevitable that as the Pearl gets built out, it will move eastward. The social services will remain there for a long time but there is alot of underused retail and office/residential opportunities to be had. The influx of clubs and nightlife stuff over the last ten years or so seem to indicate that people still like to come downtown for an evening out. Eventually, those same people or their younger syblings might even want to live down there. How this might effect the social service agencies is up in the air I would say. Can anyone name any neighborhoods in other cities where the urban poor and the urban noveau are living together "successfully"?

[pdxman]

Actually the time of transfer thru portland would be sped up if the station were on the eastside because they would reroute the train to stay on the eastside instead of going over the steel and st johns rr bridge

[mcbaby]

Originally Posted by pdxman

I actually think having the train station moved to the east side would be a great idea...it would speed up the transfer thru portland on amtrak and maybe could end up being a transportation hub for amtrak, light rail, street car and maybe commuter rail. Plus, it would keep the beloved MC intact and used. I also would love to see the realization of a public market in portland but i don't why you have to get rid of the saturday market to do so. why not combine the two?

i don't think that the memorial colliseum is so beloved. to reroute the train tracks to the the colliseum would cost a hefty sum. they would have to be below ground. to make improvements to the current bridges and tracks would be a better solution than try to retrofit another building. if we had the train traffic of say paris, we could feasably have a gare d'lest on the east side. but we are about to build the max along 5th and 6th which will lead right up to both the train station and greyhound. the east side streetcar will be going right past it on the broadway bridge. our train station is a beautiful and historic structure. to abandon it would be criminal to downtown portland.
we should first deal with the problems at hand like the bus mall realignment before we start focusing on the mess across the river. if anything we should be putting energy into moving the eastside freeway underground then perhaps work on improving the rail speeds but honestly, the entire system needs improvement not just the segment here in town.

[pdxman]

Whoa whoa whoa just to clarify my wording on the Coliseum-I, myself don't think its beloved but it seems to be with most people on this forum. I could care less if they tore it down but if people really don't want to then having transformed in to something that could give it more use, i'm all for it. I think eventually if there is to be some sort high speed rail in the nw, then putting amtrak on the eastside would be better but you're right mcbaby, we're not there yet. And for the record i am totally against light rail on the mall unless its tunneled...what a waste of money this is going to be!

[robbobpdx]

Originally Posted by pdxman

Actually the time of transfer thru portland would be sped up if the station were on the eastside because they would reroute the train to stay on the eastside instead of going over the steel and st johns rr bridge

It seems like a lot of millions might be spent to re-route the train to the east side, when we have a beautiful historic train station on the West side. Not sure it it will make that much difference in time for the Amtrak type of train, for the reasons I posted earlier, below.

Originally Posted by robbobpdx

. . . I always thought the MAIN problems with high speed (passenger) rail service was that freight trains dominate the rails (they own them), and so have priority over access . . . plus there are many "crossings" along the way, and the trains have to slow down each time they come to another crossing. . . .

I like Memorial Coliseum too, but for Winter Hawks and other reasons. Not necessarily as a train station. Other places would think we're crazy for not keeping our historic train station as a train station. That's what I hope we can do. I'd rather put money into fixing the bridges and making MAX and train travel just a bit faster over them. But as McBaby said . . . I see no reason NOT to slow down a bit when you have to come to a stop at the train staiton anyway

I agree with you totally pdxman about the MAX on the bus mall . . . totally don't like it at all, and wish it were underground. I actually wish all of downtown MAX was underground, just so the speeds cold be greater and the trains longer. I'm sure many years from now those who approved it this way will scratch their heads and say "why didn't we put this underground?" Of course those billions may have been some of the reasons, but I still think it would have been a better long-range idea .

[urbanlife]

actually I would like to see the train station move to the east side and have an iconic building built for it. The current train station is in need of some 40 million to renovate it and I would much rather see it get reused into something else.

I say this, thinking that it would be perfect for the mail center across from it would come down and turn into a huge redevelopment project for that area.

I think those ideas would be more of a win win for Portland.

[der Reisender]

realistically what would the old train station be reused as? the location is okay, but there are better ones downtown and who would be up for putting that much money into the building? It'd take PDC way too long to do shit for it. Makes more sense to keep it as a train station. I am however, all for knocking down th coliseum for a landmark building of some kind. and i look forward to the post office redevelopment too, i wonder if they will ram auto streets down it or do something more 'european'

[PDX City-State]

MC: Tear it down. It's a cool building but realistically, what could it possibly function as without massive subsidy?

[pdxtex]

isn't the colliseum slated to get some 50 million in renovations?

[zilfondel]

I love the Coliseum. And the Portland Memorial Coliseum, too.

[PacificNW]

I'm with you zilfondel...it has always been one of my favorite public buildings.

[MarkDaMan]

City sparks new interest in Old Town fire station
by Kennedy Smith
02/26/2007
Daily Journal of Commerce

It looks as though Fire Station No. 1 may finally get the facelift Portlanders have been expecting since 2004.

The city of Portland on Thursday issued a request for proposals to perform structural and architectural upgrades to the public safety building at 55 S.W. Ash St., originally erected in 1952.

But this wouldn't be the first upgrade proposed for Fire Station No. 1. In May 2005, Thomas Hacker Architects Inc. won a design competition to build an entirely new facility that would include a rescue station and a museum and interpretive center in the city's Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood. The estimated budget at the time: $22 million.

When Hacker was chosen, the principal players in the competition and selection process were Portland Fire and Rescue, City Hall and the Portland Development Commission. The PDC in 2004 committed to front nearly half of the cost for construction. Other funds would come from a general obligation fund set aside for Portland Fire and Rescue, said Connie Johnson, a project manager at the Portland Office of Management & Finance. PDC also gave Portland Fire and Rescue three quarters of Block 8.

But a very large kink in the process emerged as the city, Portland Fire and the PDC realized construction costs would far exceed the estimated $22 million.

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing," Johnson said. "When we were involved with moving the station, when we thought it was a real possibility, we were 100 percent committed to it."

The PDC knew as early as July 2004 that there would be a funding gap, but the agency decided to move forward with the project and continue weighing its options.

In July 2006, Mayor Tom Potter terminated efforts to relocate Fire Station No. 1.

A fully realized but more-expensive-than-planned Fire Station No. 1 could have been like the Portland Aerial Tram, Johnson said. "I think in a couple of years people would probably have been happy about spending the money."

Funding for a renovated Fire Station No. 1 would come largely from a bond totaling $9.5 million, a far cry from the $22 million two years ago.

The design competition for Fire Station No. 1 was the first commissioned by the city for a public building since 1980, when postmodernist architect Michael Graves won the right to build downtown's Portland Public Services Building, which was completed in 1984.

"I think the fire station was a good project for a design competition," said John Heili, a partner at TVA Architects Inc. "But what we're seeing is that we need to be more realistic about the budget aspect. If we go for design excellence, there are costs that go along with that. It's not so much that the competition is the problem, it's being more realistic about the budget."

Firms weigh options

Heili said TVA hasn't yet looked into the RFP but would probably pass on the project because it doesn't fit the firm's portfolio. "We'd need to team with a firm that has fire station experience to be credible," he said. "The reason why the design competition was so appealing and got the Allied Works and Hackers (to submit proposals) was that they were pushing the design excellence."

Last week, the PDC and Portland Fire and Rescue dissolved their 2004 agreement. The PDC said it would contribute $3.9 million for use in renovating the existing station, and Portland Fire and Rescue returned to PDC the three quarters of Block 8.

The new request for proposals asks that interested parties provide architectural and engineering teams to perform seismic upgrades and a remodel, most likely to the interior of the building, Johnson said.

William Bailey of Waterleaf Architecture said Thursday his firm hadn't made a decision on whether to respond to the request for proposals, but he plans to be present at a March 5 pre-submittal hearing. Faez Soud of Michael Willis Architects said the same. Debbie Rogers, marketing manager at Hennebery Eddy Architects – which teamed with Emmons Architects in 2005 and was one of three finalists along with Thomas Hacker and Allied Works – said her firm would meet this week to decide whether to pursue the project.

The winner of the 2005 competition, Thomas Hacker Architects, hasn't made a decision on whether to compete for Fire Station No. 1 in 2007, either. William Dann, a principal who worked on the Hacker firm's winning submission in 2005, said the firm was still weighing its options.

Potential respondents

The city of Portland posted the

RFP for an upgrade to Fire Station No. 1 on its e-bidding system Thursday. Through Friday, a host of design firms had looked at the RFP, including:

• Akaan Architecture and Design, St. Helens

• DAO Architecture, Portland

• David Evans and Associates Inc., Portland

• Deca Architecture, Portland

• Emerick Architects, Portland

• Gary Bley Architects, Portland

• Group Mackenzie, Portland

• HDR Architecture, Portland

• Hennebery Eddy Architects, Portland

• Hiromi Ogawa Architect, Portland

• Leeb Architects, Portland

• MCA Architects, Portland

• Peck Smiley Ettlin Architects, Portland

• Richard Brown Architects, Portland

• RossDrulisCusenbery Architecture, Sonoma, Calif.

• Selig/Lee/Rueda Architects,

Portland

• Thomas Hacker Architects, Portland
http://www.djc-or.com/viewStory.cfm?...28962&userID=1

[tworivers]

Here we have the perfect view of the gut-less and unimaginative backwater side of Portland, the kind of "safe" decision that will keep us a mere shadow of Seattle for years to come. I predict that one of the things Potter will be most remembered for in his hopefully one-and-only term was throwing away a chance to breathe some life into the waterfront.

[brandonpdx]

This is very disappointing. We’ll probably see more “safe” choices to follow. Nobody wants to stick their neck out after the tram.

[mcbaby]

well, if they do actually renovate the existing station, we should put pressure on city hall to make it the best one possible.

[Drmyeyes]

double post

[Drmyeyes]

City Hall's tenderfootedness regarding budget realities seems pretty lame to me too. Just because certain accountable city hall officials couldn't keep an accurate track of realistic budget projections for the tram, the city now reflexively veers away from really important long term planning decisions it should be making.

I never got a very good sense of what the proposed Hacker design for the fire station was supposed to be like, so I don't have strong feelings about it at this point, but the present station always has seemed like an aberration to me...an eyesore. Thinking of what 65MAX said about another topic, maybe the city sometimes studies things to death, but in this case, it seems like it didn't study it long enough. Despite some concerns about disturbances fire station activity might have created for condos in a location north of the Bridge, they probably shouldn't have given up on that idea so soon for the cohesiveness it would have provided to the neighborhood south of the bridge.

The worst thing about this deal is that it looks like they're going to drop a fair amount of dough fixing up the ugly fire station. Crappy mascara on an old bag. We need somebody in city hall with a lot more fortitude than the people there now are showing of late.

[mcbaby]

Originally Posted by Drmyeyes

Crappy mascara on an old bag.

don't let Darcelle hear that..