All downtown needs is $150 million
The PBA issues a call to action to save city center
Portland Business Journal - January 26, 2007
by Andy Giegerich
Business Journal staff writer
There's nothing wrong with downtown that $150 million can't fix.
A new set of strategies offered by heavy-hitting public and private interests believes that the rough figure, driven by a proposed initial $15 million earmark from the Portland Development Commission, could help downtown's retail prospects soar even as myriad construction projects pervade the city.
The money would help implement a new Downtown Retail Core strategy, covering 223 blocks, that could guide Portland's key economic strategies for the next five years.
The plan calls for major improvements on at least six large sites in the areas between Southwest Salmon and Washington streets and Second and 12th avenues.
At best, those site or building owners would convert their spaces into two- or three-story retail outlets that accommodate stores like Crate & Barrel, which had considered launching a downtown outlet before opening at Bridgeport Village in 2005.
"It's also about filling vacant corners or non-retail corners" as pedestrians stroll through the 223-block downtown core, said Christopher Kopca, who led the core strategy's task force.
As Kopca's group finalized its strategies, developer Tom Moyer announced plans to build a large tower on Southwest Yamhill Street between 9th and Park avenues.
The core retail strategy also proposes a revamp of Pioneer Place, which has lost many tenants in the past year. Task force members have yet to determine exactly how to retool the facility.
The task force assembling the plan further hopes to expand the current Business Improvement District one block east, to Southwest Second Avenue between Salmon and Washington streets, and two blocks west to Southwest 12th Avenue. The west-end moves could help better connect that area to the Brewery Blocks, on the Pearl District's southern edge.
The Business Improvement District helps fund the district's Clean and Safe program and other offerings; any expansion of it would require a buy-in from the newly included property owners.
PDC began considering this week whether to steer approximately $15 million toward the efforts. The contribution would fund short-term loans, storefront improvements, seismic upgrades and other changes. The commission's leaders could vote on the funding by early March.
Lew Bowers, a Portland Development Commission senior development manager, said PDC usually expects such allotments to generate about 10 times their worth in other commitments, such as tax-increment financing funds or investments from private building owners. The largest PDC chunk would help revitalize the Galleria and the Southwest 10th Avenue Smart Park garage.
"It seems well-coordinated with the private sector, and hopefully it's tied to some investment that really matters from people like Tom Moyer and the Naitos," who own the Galleria, said City Commissioner Erik Sten.
Overall, the moves could help alleviate competitive disadvantages that have recently hammered downtown.
"The suburban shopping areas are becoming more robust," Bowers said. "We're losing market share in downtown, but we still have a good mix of retail. We have to constantly evolve."
While the core strategy could help land a big-name national chain, its creators also want to keep downtown's cadre of independent retailers, Bowers said.
The recommendations come at a critical juncture for Portland's retail center. While office vacancy rates in the district remain low, downtown has seen a torrent of empty storefronts -- at least 40 vacancies -- in the last six months. Business proponents have feared that the many road construction projects, primarily the new transit mall light-rail plan, could further damage retailers' bottom lines.
But officials from PDC and the Portland Business Alliance, the area's leading business advocate, say the projects will provide an infrastructure around which businesses will eventually thrive.
Indeed, the new light-rail line will begin rolling about the same time that owners fully begin reaping benefits from the revamped business income tax, which the Portland City Council approved last week, and about a year after new panhandling restrictions will have theoretically made downtown's sidewalks more passable.
"We've had several good signals about doing business here that we haven't had before," said Sandra McDonough, the PBA's president and CEO. "In three to five years, this plan will give us what we need to make sure we have a lively downtown and get a good return on our investment."
Along with tweaking the six key redevelopment sites, the strategy's architects want to fill existing or expected vacancies in such structures as the Guild Theater, the current Niketown space and the empty Pioneer Courthouse Square store formerly occupied by Powell's Books.
The downtown Kitchen Kaboodle space, at Southwest Sixth Avenue and Alder Street, is also identified as a potential "upcoming vacancy." Owner John Whisler wouldn't comment on the task force's report.The task force further espouses continued funding of the Downtown Marketing program and adding a liaison to run interference between brokers and retailers.
Kopca, a senior vice president for Downtown Development Group LLC, said the strategy could further ensure that neighboring businesses better complement each other in terms of products and services. The strategy will also seek ways to fight downtown's streetscape blight. McDonough, a former journalist, suggested consolidating news racks into one unit, a successful ploy borrowed from other large cities.
The current study builds on PBA's previous efforts to guide downtown strategies through 2007. That study helped deliver such moves as the Meier & Frank/Macy's and Nordstrom's store remodels, the transit mall revitalization project, and the development of the new Park Block 5 subsurface garage and public space.
agiegerich@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3419
http://portland.bizjournals.com/port...ml?t=printable
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