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  #81  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 5:14 AM
bvpcvm bvpcvm is offline
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btw, i was looking at urbanworks' web site. there's a new sushi place (hiro sushi?) going in on the 10th ave side of the burlington tower. and, already leased (!) is the sw corner retail space of the metropolitan, but the web site only says "national clothing retailer".
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  #82  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 5:19 AM
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Wish the rendering was larger. I like the tall tower, and the green roofs - also the trail along the riverbank. Don't see the ped bridge, though, that I thought was supposed to connect the "boardwalk" along 10th to the revamped Centennial Mills/waterfront area. I'm also curious about the building directly southeast of the Encore - looks like a mirror image in design?
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  #83  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 5:59 AM
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wow

includes much interesting info
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  #84  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 6:21 AM
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i like that tall slender tower too

sort of surprising to see another sushi restaurant in the pearl on 10th ave. especially so close to sinju, but then again i like sushi so i'm not complaining

interesting about the "national clothing retailer"... any random guesses as to who it might be?

has anyone heard anything about the rest of station place? or is it tied up in PDC chaos? i recall hearing several years ago that a somewhat large format retailer (of around 40000 sq ft) was going in at station place, i think it was something about a supermarket or drug store but the pearl already has both of those (or at least in the works) plus the office max.
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  #85  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 6:25 AM
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^ mmmm... the wife and i just stuffed our faces at sushiland... more sushi is never a bad thing.

oh, and:

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  #86  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 2:33 PM
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Actually appears to be about 30 stories

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  #87  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 3:06 PM
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Booooo, why would they place the tower right next to Tanner Springs park? should be in the middle IMO as it will be between two parks...that's gonna command some money $$$

Check out that tower to the right and down a block from the tall guy...good stuff, the Pearl is finally maturing.
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  #88  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 3:10 PM
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Hoyt Street Properties new renderings of what is to come. Thanks to some of the forumers in the NW section for posting these


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  #89  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 3:37 PM
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Concrete Jungle
Hidden parks take the edge of downtown
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Fred Leeson
Hit a few golf balls. Dangle your feet in the solitude of a cascading mountain stream.

And not leave downtown.

Hey, would we kid you? Of course not. The crannies of the city center hold a few surprises.

Take golf. Hidden behind the far corner of the Peter W. Stott Center at Portland State University lie a sand trap and putting green just waiting for a wedge and putter.

Make no mistake, this is not Augusta National. The putting surface is artificial turf, but it offers some interesting undulations. And it has not just one hole to aim at but six. Bring a sandwich, play 18 and you're still back at the office within the noon hour.

Finding the hidden golf site is the first challenge. It's past the dead end of Southwest College Street west of Park Avenue. Take the sidewalk on the south side of the Stott Center as far as possible, and there you are.

Another plus: The roar of Interstate-405 immediately behind will drown out the sudden verbal outbursts that inevitably accompany golf.


Lovejoy Fountain


If a mountain freshet fits your mood, try finding the Lovejoy Fountain at Southwest Third Avenue and Harrison Street. This is no simple task, given the awkward superblocks of the South Auditorium Urban Renewal Area.

OK, so the mountain is made of layered concrete. The sound of the rushing water still gives a sense of nature, as does the solitude. There's a good chance you'll have the whole fountain to yourself, since most Portlanders forgot about it a few years after the fountain opened in 1966. Those who remember it can't find it.

We can blame the Lovejoy's isolation on the unfortunate early urban renewal street plan. And on the larger, greener Forecourt Fountain, now Ira's Fountain, that opened four years later. You can wet your toes in Ira's Fountain, too, but you'll have to share it with a whole bunch of other people.

Have we gotten better at urban renewal since the Lovejoy Fountain days?


Tanner Springs Park

Reach your own conclusion at Tanner Springs Park, which opened last summer at Northwest 10th Avenue and Marshall Street in the Pearl District. It is the second of three parks planned in the River District Urban Renewal Area.

This park attempts to re-create the feel of the historic wetlands of Tanner Creek as it poured out of the Tualatin Mountains into the Willamette River. Alas, the real Tanner Creek was channeled into subsurface culverts many decades ago.

The water feature at Tanner Springs certainly isn't a fountain. It starts as a trickle and collects into a shallow pool near the east entrance. Visitors are encouraged to stay on the paths, and dogs are not welcome. (Fido's excretions could do bad things to the water quality.) It's meant to be a contemplative space, not for large gatherings.

Take a close look at the wavy steel fence. It's made of railroad tracks from the rail yards that used to comprise the neighborhood.

Is Tanner Springs Park a success? Make your own call. At least you can find it, because this time planners respected Portland's street grid and its peculiar little downtown blocks. Fred Leeson: 503-294-5946; fredleeson@news.oregonian.com
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  #90  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 3:44 PM
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I Googled Lovejoy Fountain and found this...Is this is? I can't believe I've never seen it before, looks really nice...



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  #91  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 4:00 PM
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Thats it. Its a great place to get away from cars. Totally carfree. A few urban mistakes screwed this park up (retail surrounding this park would have been an incredible European type park) but its still a great place to get some peace from the roar of the road. There is also another carfree park in this complex a little north of this one.
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  #92  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 4:31 PM
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It's a shame, it really is hidden away in the middle of the superblock between 1st and 4th, Montgomery and Lincoln. It could really use a little activity, a restaurant, even a coffee kiosk, anything.
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  #93  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 4:47 PM
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Kick ass! Is that the base of the Fremont Bridge on the far right in the first picture?
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  #94  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 5:13 PM
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That hiddeness is what makes it so appealing. You can really escape the costant buzz of cars. I'm not sure the US is ready for a carfree pubic square with active retail similar to a lot of european cities. We seem to confuse car traffic with urban vibrancy. I'm always amazed by cafe culture on the sidewalk sitting a few feet away from 35 mile and hour car traffic.
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  #95  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 5:26 PM
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I agree about keeping it car-free, but I think a cafe off to one side would be a great addition.
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  #96  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 5:39 PM
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ooo that rendering is purdy, i like the crown sorta thing on the tall building the pearl needs more if these interesting tops of buildings like the benson
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  #97  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 7:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by colemonkee
Kick ass! Is that the base of the Fremont Bridge on the far right in the first picture?
That it is! Hopefully, more height will be allowed along side the bridge.
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  #98  
Old Posted Jul 13, 2006, 10:01 PM
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I prefer the Keller Fountain (which I really like) to the Lovejoy Fountain, maybe its because the few times I've seen the fountain it always looked rundown. I'll have to check it out on a hot day.

Tanner Springs Park is great... its unique in many ways especially in that its not an active park at all and probably has more in common with the Chinese Garden, but thats ok because the noisier and more active Jamison Square with its interactive fountain is two blocks south and the future neighborhood park of open lawns for non-organized sports and recreation will be one block north. These parks complement each other by catering to different uses and users yet all serve the same area. Even though I normally like Maya Lin's work, I thought her design for the Tanner Springs Park was atrocious and a terrible idea for any park let alone that location.
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  #99  
Old Posted Jul 14, 2006, 2:11 PM
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Visit, but don't play
Depending on whom you ask, Pearl park is a boon or a bust
By Peter Korn

The Portland Tribune, 10.4 hours ago

David Plechl / The Portland Tribune

At noontime on a Thursday Shag Johnson is sitting on the cement wall that marks the boundary of Tanner Springs Park in the Pearl District.

He’s taking his lunch break with two fellow construction workers, enjoying some sun before getting back to work putting stairways in the buildings that surround the park. But what’s odd about this picture is that Johnson and his buddies have their backs to the mostly empty park.

They could be taking their lunch on one of the benches within the park. They could be turned around on the wall, looking at the tall native grass or the pond just past the grass or the fence constructed from old railroad ties beyond that.

Instead, Johnson and his friends are facing Northwest 11th Avenue, and the high-rise condos on the other side of the street.

“We watched them put it (Tanner Springs) together and thought, ‘What a waste of money,’ ” Johnson says.

Johnson is not alone. Even some national experts think Tanner Springs wasn’t worth the nearly $4 million the city spent on it. But there are others who think Tanner Springs provides Pearl residents with exactly what they need most – solitude and a little taste of nature.

Tanner Springs is about to hit its one-year anniversary. It cost the city $2.3 million to build, $600,000 less than Jamison Park, two blocks to the south. But in addition the city had to purchase about two-thirds of the Tanner Springs property at a cost of $1.25 million.

The Pearl District Neighborhood Association has embarked on a campaign to encourage more families with children to settle in the neighborhood, but if Tanner Springs represents any kind of community statement, the association might need a new sales pitch, according to park critics.

The signs at Tanner Springs make it pretty clear this is not a place for traditional children’s activities:

Stay on the pathways and lawn areas.

No swimming or wading.

No pets.

Johnson says he’s seen the result of the park policies – most of the day Tanner Springs stands nearly empty. “You see any girls out there?” he says. “I don’t think it’s particularly attractive. The railroad tie stuff doesn’t do anything for me. If you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it.”

Deirdre Lawrence is taking a quick lunchtime walk right past the park’s north end. Asked to stop and make an appraisal she says, “It looks like it could use a little more work on that side.” She points to the park’s east half. “If they tidied the grass and without the construction work going on it would probably be a nice place to stop,” she says.

Lawrence takes a second look and points to the park’s taller grasses farther west. “It’s kind of messy in this half,” she says.

Fred Kent, president of the Project for Public Spaces, an internationally renowned nonprofit organization that consults on public spaces, says he thinks that the park’s entire concept represents landscape designers putting their egos ahead of public need.

“I’m not very positive about landscape designers,” Kent says, “because they’re into their own egos and their own design ideas. The community has a very different set of needs than to try to be part of somebody else’s ego.”

Use weighed against mission
In Kent’s view, park use is the best barometer of how well the public is being served by a park in a city.

“You need gathering places,” Kent says. “People get isolated in apartments. They don’t have natural areas in terms of gathering places where they can feel community and get excited about seeing someone, about chance encounters, about being around children that are younger, or seniors that can enjoy the smiles of children. You’re talking about human ecology.”

But Andrea Clinkscales doesn’t think turning Tanner Springs into a gathering place would benefit the Pearl at all.

Tanner Springs is supposed to be “contemplative,” according to city plans. And that’s exactly what Clinkscales likes about it.

Clinkscales, chairwoman of the volunteer group Friends of Tanner Springs Park, lives across the street from the park. She grew up in rural Dundee but likes living in the city. Knowing Tanner Springs was coming in played a big part in her decision to buy a condo in the Pearl, Clinkscales says.

“It’s really difficult for me to think about living in such a densely populated area without access to some contemplative nature scene,” Clinkscales says. “I think something like (Tanner Springs) was needed in this neighborhood, and I wouldn’t want to live in this neighborhood if it wasn’t here.”

Chance encounters?

“Most of the people living in this neighborhood don’t need social interaction,” Clinkscales says. “They’re busy people, and that’s why they chose to live here. The Pearl attracts people who are not interested in that reaching-out-socially part of their lives.”

Solitude’s a draw in itself
On a bench in the middle of Tanner Springs a young man, who won’t provide his name but says he is a Portland State University graduate student, sits alone, leafing through day trader documents.

“I like this park a lot,” he says. “It’s different than the rest of them.”

Has he noticed the lack of children? “That’s not so bad,” he says. “Maybe that’s part of what makes it attractive. There aren’t any people using it.”

Erin Braithwaite is walking fast past the park’s north side. She’s got Madison, her Pomeranian, on a leash.

“If they allowed dogs in I’d be in there all the time” says Braithwaite, a medical student at Oregon Health & Science University. But they don’t allow dogs, not even on leashes. So Braithwaite, who lives in a nearby apartment, walks Madison on the sidewalk around the park’s perimeter every day. And Madison, Braithwaite says, “longingly looks at the grass.”

Braithwaite says she has seen condo owners yell out their windows at dog owners who dared to take their pets into the park, toward the enticing grass.

“It’s kind of a strange park,” she says. “It’s more like something I just observe.”

Jamison Park bustles
Observing is more than Shag Johnson and his fellow construction workers are willing to do at this point. “If there were kids here there would be girls here and maybe husbands here,” he says. “It would be alive. It looks like a waste of money, a dead space.”

What would make Johnson turn around and take his lunch facing the park? Activity, he says. And energy. “Even the laughter of kids,” he says.

There are plenty of kids a block away at Jamison Park.

At 3 o’clock on a recent hot Sunday afternoon in July there were 110 people at Jamison Park, from young children splashing around in the cascading water to adults lounging in the grass. There was even a woman selling ice cream bars from a cooler near the water.

At the same time there were six people in Tanner Springs – one man reading on a park bench, two women sitting on the terraced lawn at the park’s north edge, two people strolling and a homeless man sleeping under a tree.

Henry Kunowski, program manager for Portland Parks & Recreation, doesn’t think the Portland Tribune’s informal survey tells a complete story. The city doesn’t keep tabs on how many people use each park, Kunowski says, and one of the reasons is that the parks don’t operate individually but as pieces of an ensemble.

Fields may fill popular need
A third Pearl District park, called the Fields and scheduled to open in about three years, will have grass and trees and a field on which children can play, Kunowski says. It also will feature a play area for dogs. Tanner Springs, he says, serves a different need. Jamison Park is mostly what he calls “hardscape.” Tanner he calls mostly “greenscape.”

“With Tanner we felt that in a high-density area you need a sense of green relief, and not looking out your window and seeing a mass of people gathering on a hard surface,” Kunowski says.

Kunowski points out that the final plan for Tanner Springs was arrived at after three public workshops, each of which was attended by at least 150 Pearl residents. And they liked the idea of a contemplative, ecological park.

“It was virtually unanimous: ‘We want this park,’ ” Kunowski says.
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  #100  
Old Posted Jul 14, 2006, 3:06 PM
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I think this park will end up being the best one of the bunch when when it matures. Cities are about choices. this park gives a choice to those who want a little deeper experience then hot chicks and kids shouting. I noticed someone painting in this park the other day. The Grass comment is really funny. Does everything have to be pefectly mancured to be beautiful? I love the flowing grass. At night when you get a breeze it gives off sounds so rare in the city. But I guess it doesnt compare to the raw power of a roaring lawn mower culling grass into the man made form desired.
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